This was shot at Chor Bazar the Market of Thieves , all memories of times gone by come here to be recycled and sold.. each statue basks in the penury of public glare , I used the mans hand , which will soon decay , the story of the Statue will move to a new house , an American will buy ir for her house in Sunny California..yes even staute weeps.. they bleed only lovers can see this...

 

This is my earlier poem.

 

He who is intoxicated with wine will be sober again in the course of the night,but he who is intoxicated by the cupbearer Sakhi,will not recover his senses until the day of judgement.. saadi.

 

We attract hearts by the qualities we display, we retain them by the qualities we possess.suard

  

I love her .. she knows it.. yet she feigns, pretends she knows nothing.. yes she has a blocked nose.. the sinus of her soul.Banished from her kingdom.. in the wild wilderness a traveller blogged in the misery of the written word..we may not meet .. papered wings.. I am learning to fly to once again like a voyeur merged in the darkness of the night perched precariously on her window sill.. I want to call out her name .Peace.. Oh Peace..but she will wake and hurt her herself as she sleep walks in her dreams..her negligee silken, caresses her being.. her tresses like tender baby hands. .kiss her back to sleep..

 

she punishes me, everlastingly ... my guilt.. I love her everlastingly .

 

I wrote something amazing on love at Buzznet , I pressed the wrong key the post disappeared completely , I dont save , it hurt but Love is a page that disappears , love means only loving you dont to be loved in exchange..marriage is the enemy of love Divorce is ultimate release ..

Love has to be there unconditionally ..love is not a fucked Valentine Day Card..

Love is Gods reflection , a grey zone ..monochromatic melody..and more .

I am now re editing my poems as I post them here at Flickr there by unlearning to unlove..

Love is fresh , never stales never stagnates..

love is where her soul and his mind that mates

love is love it never impersonates

fuck trembling doors fuck unopen gates

yes under the lamp post in tungsten light

this blogger waits ..

sycophancy mother of unkindness

oh how she hates

my poems like my love never curdles

or outdates

 

All this freshly written ..the introduction that is at the feet of my poem

the bare feat of my poem

 

"Masters Of War"

 

Come you masters of war

You that build all the guns

You that build the death planes

You that build all the bombs

You that hide behind walls

You that hide behind desks

I just want you to know

I can see through your masks.

 

You that never done nothin'

But build to destroy

You play with my world

Like it's your little toy

You put a gun in my hand

And you hide from my eyes

And you turn and run farther

When the fast bullets fly.

 

Like Judas of old

You lie and deceive

A world war can be won

You want me to believe

But I see through your eyes

And I see through your brain

Like I see through the water

That runs down my drain.

 

You fasten all the triggers

For the others to fire

Then you set back and watch

When the death count gets higher

You hide in your mansion'

As young people's blood

Flows out of their bodies

And is buried in the mud.

 

You've thrown the worst fear

That can ever be hurled

Fear to bring children

Into the world

For threatening my baby

Unborn and unnamed

You ain't worth the blood

That runs in your veins.

 

How much do I know

To talk out of turn

You might say that I'm young

You might say I'm unlearned

But there's one thing I know

Though I'm younger than you

That even Jesus would never

Forgive what you do.

 

Let me ask you one question

Is your money that good

Will it buy you forgiveness

Do you think that it could

I think you will find

When your death takes its toll

All the money you made

Will never buy back your soul.

 

And I hope that you die

And your death'll come soon

I will follow your casket

In the pale afternoon

And I'll watch while you're lowered

Down to your deathbed

And I'll stand over your grave

'Til I'm sure that you're dead.

 

~Bob Dylan

 

www.ashevillage.org/permaculture-school

Seattle, Janaury 19, 2015.

"Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned." ~Mark Twain

Once I was a new member

I do remember

torn to shred by collective racist hate

in a month of Peace

this December

Oh Ryan I miss you

As I walk on burning balls of embers

Me my mind raw as green cucumber

I unlearn poetry as the rest of a poetic world

snores in deep slumber

they will wake up

fight and their best friends dismember

    

Hubcap

  

I saw a woman full of seeking today;

she sought through her smile:

upbeat, friendly,

all those attributes of goddess.

 

Perhaps age will fade her vision,

tribulation cool her enthusiasm.

 

Day melts into night,

night into day,

year follows year:

will youth find its way through?

 

Youth has much to learn,

yet less than most to unlearn,

for her smile rises from a pure heart.

 

Amen to cheerful givers,

to those who meet and greet:

filling the cups of all who come,

filling their hearts,

enkindling a flame.

 

Startled indeed.

 

“and half of learning to play is learning what not to play

and she's learning the spaces she leaves have their own things to say

and she's trying to sing just enough so that the air around her moves

and make music like mercy that gives what it is and has nothing to prove

 

she crawls out on a limb and begins to build her home

and it's enough just to look around and to know that she's not alone

 

up up up up up up up points the spire of the steeple

but god's work isn't done by god

it's done by people”

 

- Ani DiFranco -

www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/wind

My first mosaic. Took a mosaic class at a stained glass studio. While it turned out okay, I've since learned to unlearn almost everything I thought I learned.

That Gulf.

 

Katell Keineg - The Gulf of Araby Lyrics

  

If you could fill a vale with shells from kilinney's shore

& sweet talk in a tongue that is no more

If wishful thoughts could bridge

the gulf of araby between...

What is

what is

What is

and what can never be

  

If you could hold the frozen flow of New hope creek

& hide out from the one they said you might meet

If you could unlearn all the words that you never wanted heard

If you could stall the southern wind that's whistling in your ears

You could take what is

What is

What is

To what can never be

  

One man of seventy whispers free at last,

Two neighbours who are proud of their massacre,

three tyrants torn away in a winters mug

four prisoners framed by a dirty judge

five burned with tyres

six men still inside

and seven more days to shake at the great divide

The gulf of araby

  

Well we would

Plough and part the earth to bring you home

we would harvest every miracle ever known

if they laid out all the things that these tenures want to bring

we would gladly give them up

to bring you back to us

There is nothing we would not give

to kiss you and believe

we can take what is

what is

what is

to what can never be

  

One man of seventy whispers not free yet,

Two neighbours who make up knee deep in their dead

three tyrants grab the reigns in the summers heat

four prisoners lost in the fallacy

five on my life

six have died inside

and seven more days to shake at the great divide

The gulf of araby

The gulf of araby...

The gulf of araby

 

Heres a piece I did for Design For Humanity is Billabong’s charitable initiative.

It's been a few years since I've worked with them but this years show is sure to impress.

 

Design for Humanity Art Auction 2012 : UNLEARN | RELEARN

Wednesday July 25th doors open at 7pm until close of auction at 11:30pm.

 

Artist include:

Maya Hayuk, Justin Krietemeyer, Chris Bettig, Lisa Solberg, Deedee Cheriel, Damion Silver, Mark Warren Jacques, Magda Wosinska, Paige Smith, Brooke Reidt, John Antoski, Eric Shaw, Emma Garr, Lauren Ward, Jim Mangan,Malia James, Lindey Byrnes, Sophie St.-Onge, Danielle Petach, Tyler Warren, Andy Davis, Daniella Manini, Ryan Milner, Tom Jackson, Robert “Sticky” Shaw, Scott Massey, Brigitte Sire, Gareth Stehr, Lindsay Perry, and J Everette Perry

 

For more info check out:

www.designforhumanity.com/

View On Black

 

Only one of these is going to stay... but I can't decide which one. I like the paler one because of the strange, vaguely sick, glow to the skin and the contrast between skin and hair (and fraggle). But then I like the black & white version because everything, every vein, every strand of hair, every bump on the throat, is magnified.

 

So it's up to you.

 

Assuming you care. ;-P

"Exploring Race, Representation, and History in Children's Literature" This session for early childhood teachers, hosted by Teaching for Change's D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice and Project Unlearn on 1/26/2019, provided time for early childhood teachers to explore how to address issues of race, representation, and history in developmentally appropriate ways. The session was held at the beautiful Eaton Hotel in DC. Two children's books were provided to participants, courtesy of NMAAHC (where the session was originally scheduled) and donations from publishers. This session was in preparation for DC Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. Learn more about the week of action here: www.dcareaeducators4socialjustice.org/black-lives-matter-...

"Never call yourself a philosopher, nor talk a great deal among the unlearned about theorems, but act conformably to them."

– Epictetus, 'Enchiridion', 46.

 

"Art has a double face, of expression and illusion, just like science has a double face: the reality of error and the phantom of truth."

– René Daumal, 'The Lie of the Truth' (1938).

 

"It was appropriate to say up front that systems thinking is the parent of design thinking and systems inquiry embeds design inquiry."

– Bela H. Banathy, 'Designing Social Systems in a Changing World' (1996) p. 163.

"Exploring Race, Representation, and History in Children's Literature" This session for early childhood teachers, hosted by Teaching for Change's D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice and Project Unlearn on 1/26/2019, provided time for early childhood teachers to explore how to address issues of race, representation, and history in developmentally appropriate ways. The session was held at the beautiful Eaton Hotel in DC. Two children's books were provided to participants, courtesy of NMAAHC (where the session was originally scheduled) and donations from publishers. This session was in preparation for DC Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. Learn more about the week of action here: www.dcareaeducators4socialjustice.org/black-lives-matter-...

Today was a pretty day

No disappointments

No expectations on your whereabouts

And oh, did I let you go?

Did it finally show that strange things will happen if you let

them?

 

Today I didn't even try to hide

I'll stay here and never push things to the side

You can't reach me cause I'm way beyond you today

 

Today was a pretty day

Summer comes with

These slight surprises where your life might twist and turn

Hope to unlearn

Strange things will happen

If you let them come around and stick around

 

Today I didn't even try to hide

I'll stay here and never push things to the side

Today I didn't even look to find

Something to put me in that peace of mind

You can't touch me cause I'm way beyond you today

Scenes from a retreat in the Catskills. Nineteen visionaries spend a week at work on new projects and strategies for wholesome and sovereign living.

I am a Diabetic Fotographic Freak

Every two minutes I got take a leak

And the manual lens of my cock

Unfocussed Zeiss of an Antique .

And Tied Down by her critique

In silence that wont speak

My poetry words that

Seductively strip and streak

  

Yes I would give my Designer ass

Instead of a single cheek

Blessed are The Meek,

Talonted she once said

To my lack of poetic technique

Horny projecting mouth of a poet

Testicularly attached to his beak

  

Poetical Pause Fuck I would scream

To Unlearn Photography is my dream

Fuck Rembrandt lighting

A singleSun

And clouds as reflectors

My Picture of Sunbeam

Me my pictorial cock my

Poetic wet dreams

From old ghouls Renaissance Masters

My foto blogged soul

I shall redeem.

  

My 367 th poem at poemhunter.

 

This picture was shot by Dharam, the hot shot freelance celebrity photographer from the top of the spiral staircase.. for me it was agony as my sugar levels were driving me crazy, the burning floor before this shot I was getting call after call to return to my shop.

This was a photo shoot I did at the local Zoo for Mr Shreekanth Malushte my photo Guru and his students..This was for the promotion of Mr Shreekanth Malushtes photo classes in the DNA Newspaper..

  

#beggarpoet

#firozeshakir

 

30 June 2007

 

These are three stories in one ,,as a camera club photographer I was repressively pushed back into a world of regressive stupid rules , and shoved fine art in my reluctant rectum.. There was hardly any mention of street photography ,, and once I took vanvas exile from camera club culture I discovered photography on the net ,, I began posting my pictures under the various heads of religion as that was my genre or people photography , I did not know the ways of the net in 2005 and it was only in 2007 when I reached the shores of Flickr as a Buzznet refugee it was late Fred Miller who told me to tag my pictures as street photography and so I became a street photographer by default ,, I began to stalk the streets of Chor Bazar and I have crossed over 65000 street blogs at Flickr .. even more if you take my religious pictures shot on the streets .

And I had great masters at that time Tom Andrews my first inspiration at Buzznet .. Eric Parker at Flickr Akbar Simonese the Master of Street Photography stark haunting pictures that left a mark on your psyche ,, he did not manipulate situations , simple pictures with masterly thoughts ,, there are many more but they are into composite photography and 8Hai his Chinese street images of tea drinkers .. these are out of the world so honestly Flickr began educating me inspiring me , without Flickr I would have been caught in a bottle of crab shooting the same shit that you see in Camera club Newsletters and their rip off salon brochures ,, I am lucky by throttling the soul of my analogue photography and rechristening myself as a Blogger I did reach personal milestones ,,I am still unlearning what ever shit I was forced at camera club level.. and mind you I am a product of the camera club I dont want to live in a prison of another dead masters mind .

My second thought street barbers I cannot stop myself from shooting them they contributed to my street photography I shot them prolifically , these migrants from Badayun , Meerut Bareilly and other Uttar Pradesh hick towns ,, they came to Mumbai with dreams in their eyes and scissor comb in their hands and I shot them as kids working on adults ,, Barberism Religious Tonsure Akika is what I shot and Mundan and this is my set on Flickr ,, I think I have an album of almost all the street barbers of Bandra ,,and I must confess I shoot street barbers like a madman I shoot them on Pitru Paksha at Banganga Walkeshwar.

The third thought pictures heal.. my kid sister used to tell me the day I shot Lalbagh Chya Raja to give a copy to her teacher who was invalid ,, this was her Darshan on my picture and I dont know if it really healed her as much as it healed me by giving it to her I hardly give pints ,, the only time I gave 100 prints was to Heena HIjra at Pila House my muse my model and an androgynous spirit ,, now all their pictures are locked up from public view , and I have a lot of Salon prints .. one lot was of my Gurus Ling Kriya pictures that I recently gave it to him..they were with me since 2003,.. yes pictures heal and they heal from within and without ,,having a camera to shoot pictures to calibrate your ego is not photography..

And photography healed me of my chronic alcohol dependence my hot temper ,, and sobered me sanely I think..

You see a picture but you read a blog. this is a photo blog million light years from a picture you shoot at Ladakh or Himachal..

‘Pasting (from AUGUST STRINDBERG'S 'THE DREAM PLAY')’

 

CHRISTINE. I paste, I paste.

THE DAUGHTER. [Pale and emaciated, sits by the stove] You shut out all the air. I choke!

CHRISTINE. Now there is only one little crack left.

THE DAUGHTER. Air, air—I cannot breathe!

CHRISTINE. I paste, I paste.

THE LAWYER. That's right, Christine! Heat is expensive.

 

Talia: “The characters split, double, multiply, evaporate, condense, dissolve and merge. But one consciousness rules them all: the dreamer's; for him there are no secrets, no inconsistencies, no scruples and no laws. He does not judge or acquit, he merely relates”

 

Ruin: The wonderful Mister Strindberg. Waving here. Whilst un-pasting, even.

 

It’s all a bit like that, I guess. Unravelling, perhaps, more so. But there is a definite picking apart. I almost feel like I have ‘breakthroughs’ every morning, though there might be some self-delusion there. I am aware of my neediness, that yearning for some sort of acknowledgement, central to posting here on Flickr, the text with the images. That is now stopping, I am unlearning that ‘habit’ currently, un-pasting it, unravelling it, whatever. But I can’t spend too much time on that, it’s time to make the move. I think I have done it.

 

I have started to write alone, for and to myself. I can do it. I even found ‘Rock’ to help me out, a fictitious character, an ‘anti-me’. I know. He might, or might not, become fully-fledged, an amalgamation of ‘daddy voices’, a character in himself. He might fade away with time, I have no idea. I am continuing to write.

 

This frees me up, I don’t have to worry about censorship, offending anybody, or being cancelled. There’s an idea, like I care about being cancelled anyway. How more cancelled’ can one be? Death does that eventually and is the only cancellation that is of mild interest, even.

 

Yes, to the world out there, its stupid wars, and its unravelling climate-wise. I am not going to be going out there throwing tomato soup over, oil-painted, water lilies. Each to his own. I have never driven, and never will, and will more than likely never fly again, having not done so for 12 years now. I will wear extra jumpers and turn off the heat. I will continue to write, pasting up those cracks. I won’t be sending money to charitable causes where the head of the board drives a car or takes planes to emergency climate meetings. With a total pension of 500 Euros a month, why would I send money to any charity?

 

Hopefully I will overcome this schizophrenia, this pasting/unpasting, by removing myself further, this quarantine.

 

It’s a bit scary, but ho-hum, that’s life. Ernaux has been wonderful to read, a tonic in these times, the self, that core, extended outwards shamelessly, Sadean and true, wonderfully desperate.

 

I will always have room for you, and will always answer you, and love your incursions.

 

I might not play so much with images anymore, but will continue to put things up on Flickr, more everyday notes, like a visual journal, a day by day diary. I have been using it as a research place for a while now, putting up other reminders for myself, like the one attached, just visual notes.

 

just memory enhancers...

 

And yes, there is an awful lot of writing, and I will try to make it into what is called a book. If any of it is any good, it might survive, if it's not any good, then it won't. I can't judge it, being in the middle of it, and am too busy to bother to even try. Time will tell, and I won't be around for that telling, either way, anyway.

 

I disagree with that “You can’t call yourself a writer ... when you’ve never actually written a book!”. You can call yourself anything you want, the world doesn't have to concur, but that, ultimately doesn't matter.

 

Self-delusion might be at the core of every individual, so embracing that might be a beginning.

 

It's interesting that this brings up a pithiness in me, it's very uncomfortable, but at least interesting to acknowledge. It's a huge failing in me, I have no doubt about that, forty shades of green and all that palaver.

 

Screaming 'love me' relentlessly sure wears one down. I suspect though that this might eventually be a good thing, that wearing down. Hope springs eternal!

 

Paste, unpaste, pick apart and tangle up. Gordian knots, go figure. I like realising how awful I am; it's a great first step.

  

Rack, I guess you are, for now, the only sounding board I am not relinquishing. I know I can do it without you, but I love doing it with you. It is, of course, totally up to you if you want to play the muse role or not. Rock is proving to be a great help, a godsend, even.

 

Enjoy those 40 variations of verdure.

 

Rock: Okay, so you have begun to be more methodical with the keeping of a diary, I think that might be a good idea, to have some continuity. It can feed in and out of what you are writing too.

 

Ruin: Yes, that’s the idea. Of course, it’s inspired by Ernaux, but also by Rack. Rack, apparently, has written every day for as long as I have known her, and obviously well before that too (Yes, there was life before me). This means she knows dates, the exact date we met, the days of our screaming/laughing walks, shared hysterics, and the dates of other huge events in her own life, ones I can only guess approximately. Like the day she discovered she also had Hep-c, on top of her principal fatal disease. In 1988 that’s exactly what it was, there was no talk then of it being manageable. She has always been at great pains to point out to me that these diary entries are just that, the bones of each day, just a record of what happened on that day. Rack has always been spare, the opposite of me. I guess it’s one of the many reasons I am drawn to her. I have always loved to coax out ‘trusting’ from the overly cautious, it’s one of my many failings.

 

I find hesitancy beautiful.

 

I have even asked her for some dates, like what was that date we met, the day of that break in filming in the ‘Moondance Diner’. There is always this sort of vague ‘promise’ of her telling me, of giving me that information, but it isn’t really a promise, more an indication that I was heard, and that, perhaps, I don’t need to know, like it’s one step too far. I love this privacy dance. There are so many ways in which Rack is beyond generous. She is more than right in this preserving of her own bones.

 

As it happens, I don’t really need dates. I can even get the year slightly wrong, and the story would still be exactly the same. I don’t even know on which dates my mother and father died, I know I could search for it in those million words of emails, or Flickr posts, but I don’t have that knowledge in my head. It’s on a hard drive external to me. It’s not something I am proud of, it’s just true. Jeffrey died of Aids sometime in 1991, I think. I helped him die, stopped him universally hemorrhaging with morphine, and I don’t even remember the date.

 

Who believes in dates or calendars anyway?

 

Answer: Obviously Rack and Annie Ernaux do. I love that they do, so I might give it a go here.

 

It might even alleviate the squandering of days, in becoming a daily chore, like brushing your teeth or having a good dump. I suspect it might even become pleasurable, rather like the latter of those two chores.

 

I did follow Rack down the HIV route, some 15 years after she tripped-up potholing. I didn’t follow her down that Hep-c boreen. Perhaps something had kicked-in, in between times. Perhaps our emails had sobered me up, or maybe the childhood abuse was already healing. Either way, Rack sloughed off that liver lurgy, hip-hip-hooray for science, and now we only have this one ‘manageable’ death sentence to negotiate together, side by side whilst forever apart. We now get to catfish each other gloriously.

 

I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, ask for more. Knowing she is out there, and apparently immortal, is more than enough. We share a certain sardonic humour about it all, recalling her “The year of my so-called death” in 1988, a year I initially got wrong at first, erroneously placing us in 1997 in ‘The Moondance Diner’.

 

What’s 34, or is it 35, years between friends?

 

Rack as Nora, Nora as Rack

 

Rack never blurted; she always controlled her output. The effect was precise and Protestant, “I found out I am HIV positive a few days ago.”

 

“Oh Christ”, Ruin blurted, Catholic to the hilt.

 

Ruin was always an outlet for Rack, almost like a delinquent spokesperson, the stuttering utterer of the unspeakable. He had the ability to take the private into the realm of the universally available with consummate ease. She didn’t. It was something she greatly feared and something she instinctively grasped that early summer morning in 1987, in the 'Moondance Diner', on 6th Avenue and Grand. She knew she was making the personal public. She was undoing herself.

 

He possessed that strange gift, the one imposed and imprinted, like the mark of Cain, on the sexually molested child, of having no facility to recognise boundaries, no ability to be able to tell the personal and private apart from what could be made generally available. She knew that he was her surrogate broadcaster and momentarily shuddered at the stranger, whom she had spontaneously trusted, sitting opposite her. This understanding hung between them as they ordered breakfast.

 

Their opening was torturous and drove them scurrying apart. It was more than either of them could handle, Rack racked with regret for exposing this opening wound and Ruin incapable of carrying the story alone. Their rehabilitation was slow and arduous. It was a time when to speak these words was a declaration of the almost immediate dissolution of self. It was a time before the hope generated by the misnomered cocktails and the political agitation, which was to burgeon out of despair and become Act- Up. It was a time before anything could be done except grasp at straws. So, both started grasping and would occasionally find themselves in the same room drawn to the same possible panacea. Rack’s volition was desperation. Ruin’s was guilt. They acknowledged each other with some embarrassment and growing affection and more often than not turned away from each other and left separately. Ruin knew he loved Rack. Rack was not at all sure.

 

Dear Rack,

 

Just sending you back some words you once sent to me:

 

“I have often thought that writers do not write; they read what is already written and transcribe. So perhaps they are not complaining about ill health, lack of money, and rejection, but about the bondage of a calling that keeps them laboriously transcribing cryptic messages in rapidly disappearing ink, like the traces of a dream, year after year...."

 

Thinking of how romantic you are.... even if it is all so appalling to live through.

 

We seem to endure, and hopefully will continue to do so for a little while longer.

 

Love,

Ruin

  

Rack: There they are. And there they aren’t. I love them like I could never love them.

 

Ruin: Yes indeed, there we are and there we aren't. I like finding an image of us, whilst telling a mis-remembered story. I like that we have inadvertently grown older than we expected, and are growing towards not hating ourselves through the writing of it out, and I love that we have written to each other over 35 years and I have squirrelled it all away to draw ‘Artificial Intelligence’ images out of. This image is made from us, but is not exactly us. This A.I. is a late life gift.

 

I dreamt about Rock. He didn’t look at all like me, which sort of surprised me. I am not sure why. We were in bed together, and we were spooning. I was trying it on, of course, which used to be my wont in the intervening years between the rupture and the present, pushing back on him, and he was telling me no, that it was inappropriate, and not what we both needed. Of course, it put me in mind of James, my uncle, and I agreed with Rock. Yes, he was right.

 

Rock was big spooning me, tenderly, lovingly, it felt good, it felt completely nonsexual, there was no pressure against my back. I was a very small spoon. Once I accepted these new, strange, parameters, I was relieved, perhaps more so because I am now, at 68, enjoying being inviolate, and my dream sort of knew this, even though I was young in the dream. There was a weird sort of retrospective knowing. I felt as vulnerable as I was then, but I somehow knew that Rock was right. He said, “you want to talk about James, don’t you?”. Again, he was right, I did. The Pope was also in the dream, not in the bed, but he might as well have been. I can’t remember why he was there, what he was up to. I just remember thinking he must be the biggest tourist-draw in the world, now that Liz is dead, at least as an individual. This seemed, and even now seems, incontrovertible.

 

This diary thing suits me. I start typing as soon as the computer kicks on, before I take my first of three morning pills, before I have time to forget. I still have no idea if Putin has decimated Kherson overnight, or if there is a new universal plague working its terror outside our front door. The world will do what it does. It will work its way into my consciousness all in good time, no man being an island and all that palaver. I really have to stop saying that. The initial diary entry can just sit there uncompleted, a memory jogger, to be filled in, fleshed out, or concluded later, constituting what Rack might call “The bones of the night”.

 

Ok, the bones are established, I can take a peep. Al Jazerra is screaming:“ ‘Too loud is true’: Is Russia setting a Trap in Kherson? “. The madness of the everyday asserts itself, stretching out before breakfast, echoing Blanchot. But back to Uncle James, and other personal insanities.

 

I never pushed back on James, or did I? I don't know. I was a needy child. I was stupidly innocent, young, ignorant, or perhaps just unschooled. He was the predator, put in my bed by my mother. I was the ‘victim’. Unfortunately, this victimhood status seems to be a very hardy perennial, one that flowers even for the whole life of that plant, or the person, but not only does it flower once yearly, it flowers often, and whenever it wants to. It’s more like a very persistent budding weed, a knot weed of sorts. The Gordian aspect of it all is perhaps gilding that description. But it is there. Either way, unravelling it can take a lifetime. There are shortcuts through it, suicide or running riot with a chainsaw, slicing through it like Alexander the Great, that sort of thing, but Ruin was always glad he hadn’t resorted to those. No, he decided he would gnaw at the knot, hopelessly hoping that nobody would notice his teeth wearing down.

 

Of Boreen Raging (A Silverfish Book)_Photo below.

 

People noticed of course.

 

Anyway Ruin, his pronouns are ‘he’ and ‘him’, is that third person descriptor of the protagonist here, and I am going to write this in the first person. Afterall it is just an early-morning diary entry written to, and for, me, so all subterfuge can be dropped.

 

Rock: I get what you are saying there, but you do know that’s virtually impossible, don’t you? Do you really think you can tell the ‘truth’, even to yourself, I mean, can anyone?

 

Ruin: Yes, Rock, I think he gets that, but you are right to point it out. Perhaps we both need to shut up and just see what he comes up with.

 

Rock: Get you Ruin! Move over King Solomon, there’s a contender in court.

 

Ruin: More of a pretender, but whatevs! Let’s try shutting-the-fuck-up.

 

Either way, I won’t be rushed in this. It will come out in its own time. It will come out. I might write more later today, or I might not. It’s not a question of ‘waiting for the muse’, it’s more letting things percolate. You two, Rock and Ruin, can chime in whenever you want, don’t hold back, I appreciate your input even if I don’t always agree with you. Rack has flown from New York to Ireland, she’s there now. I am thinking about her proximity to Amsterdam (my current home), and ever-present absence. She can still tolerate being there, I can’t. My imagination won’t allow me even to contemplate ever being there again. I can’t see that changing, but I can consider the remote possibility of being wrong about that.

 

As an aside, Annie Ernaux came a little closer to what I wrote about her earlier, that de Sade connection via de Beauvoir, in a quote from her diary in ‘Getting Lost’, page 178:

 

“A descent into sadomasochism, but gentle, without violence (because of the combination of sodomy and ‘normal’ sex - bruised all over, at one point, I thought I was torn). He said, ‘Annie, I love you’, and I didn’t attach any importance to it because it was during sex”

 

My convoluted mind connects this with the abuse in my early teens, I am not sure why it does, it just does. Hence, my need to let things percolate.

 

There was a point, towards the very end of that rupture, when Uncle James, said he loved me. There was no victory there at all, other than getting him permanently out of my bed, which was in itself huge. Strangely it more or less happened at the same time as I seemed to, miraculously, overcome my stammer. I have never understood that. Actually, I do sort of sense what that means though I will need some time to be able to describe that ‘vanquishing’.

 

I think I was 15 years old.

 

Saint Annie hits the nail on the head again, driving it further into that sprawling green Grünewald-ean hand.

 

Look, the stutter is gone, and I am no longer just a set of holes.

  

01/11/2022

 

I dreamt about some right-honourable-members last night, or early this morning. They weren’t ‘in full flight’ members, not ‘virilis’ or anything, just cuddly soft ones, nestled, slumbering in, pre-depilation, retro pubes, with their hoods drawn over their dry little heads. The word ‘cute’ comes to mind. They were attached to unrecognisable individuals, those cuddly coils, one of whom seemed to be collecting money in one of those plastic collecting thingies that those people outside the supermarket carry, trying to relieve you of your spare change for some good cause or other. Their days might be somewhat numbered, those collectors, what with everyone in the queue seemingly flashing their iPhones at the scanners nowadays, so that cash seems to be becoming redundant, going the way of that downy cushion of pubes, following advancement and the new century, like the rest of everything else, towards extinction.

 

Blessed, and much beloved redundancy, all part and parcel of this rush towards endless growth and a brave new post-tumescent world. Bring it on. Being chaffed off is more than acceptable. It’s even interesting to be in the process of feeling the parts fall off. It all puts me in mind of watching Mark America die, yes that was his adopted name, as he watched, and described, his body working to “let me go”, as he put it. I couldn’t be beside his bedside for the whole duration, we were not that close, and he wanted time alone. I asked him would he like to have a camera to record dying, and he said that he really would. He was one of those artist types, incorrigible. I gave him a few disposable cameras, they were all the rage then in the late eighties or early nineties, whenever it was. You know me and dates. I can check though. The dates of his taking them were inscribed automatically on the photos themselves. I have the images; I will take a look.

 

It was later than I thought, 20/12/94 to be precise, coming on Christmas, not that far off the date when the pills became lifesavers. Mark missed that boat, but he didn’t seem to mind at all. He didn’t appear to have a ‘poor me’ bone in his body. Yes Ruin, shut up, I know I could take a page from his book, whilst inserting him into mine. Can you and Rock just withdraw for a moment, whilst I work this out?

 

I have no idea how he did it. He was ensconced in a private room in a salubrious midtown hospital, with a view out on that island in the Hudson, ‘Roosevelt Island’ by name. He could watch the famed aerial tram, a strangely placed type of ski-lift, go back and forth. I knew the area, from having worked up there on some interiors for ‘Parrish Hadley’, well for Arthur Hadley really, Sister Parrish having recently done her own sloughing off. I used to do these interiors, so called ‘special finishes’, Venetian Stucco and the like, to support my making of the ‘Ikons’, those memorialising, honouring, pieces which were part and parcel of my meeting with Mark in that hospital. Some of those pieces are now ensconced in the ‘Irish Museum of Modern Art’. Mark didn’t live long enough to be included in that set of 40 gold-leaf pieces, though we initially met to discuss the possibility.

 

Mark was English originally, I never knew his family name, something else he had sloughed off, becoming an ‘illegal alien’ artist, with no health insurance, taking on the name of his host country. He was a fellow raving homo in the middle of a raging plague. Of course, we loved each other instantly. What was not to love? That love lasted all of three weeks, just allowing him enough time to bring in the New Year and die. How he ended up in a private room in the ‘Memorial Sloane Kettering Hospital’, I will never know. I did ask, but he waved the question off as inconsequential. He was right, what mattered was that he was there, with a catheter tube snaking out of his, fully on display, nestled and swollen trouser-snake.

 

He loved its redundancy. I must admit that I loved its redundancy too, it was infectious, but I even more loved his total acceptance, his embracing, of his devolving.

 

Or was it evolving?

 

I remember him say “Look at me, look what my body has to do to let me go. Isn’t it remarkable?”, whilst gesturing towards his family jewels. We both laughed. Yes, it was remarkable, it was a rhetorical question. He appeared to have no anger at all. It wasn’t every day that you would walk into a room and be encountered by a man, a veritable stranger, in a hospital bed with his ‘Scolaro’ out, swollen and pierced by a red dangly tube, leading to a bag attached to the side of the bed. Don’t worry, the full etymology of the word ‘Scolaro’ will follow shortly, but you will know from a few paragraphs above that I am talking about his ‘John Thomas’, those offending members do seem to be the subject for discussion this good morning. Those of a delicate nature might choose to look away, though it is possibly a mite too late now for one of those ubiquitous ‘trigger warnings’. I shall endeavour not to allow my description, my feeling my way into this delicate subject, become too purple.

 

I am looking at a photograph of him now, and no, I am not crying, neither am I sad. He was, and is, formidable, holding his swollen uncut member in his hands, swollen by the substantial tube disappearing into it. The tube itself is forked, the part outside his body, I mean. One fork is sealed off with some sort of stopper, the other fork continues into a long plastic tube, snaking off the side of the bed to a slowly filling bag. I presume the second forked, and stoppered, tube is for ingress, for whatever drugs might be needed to facilitate the body’s acceptance of this intrusion, perhaps some anaesthetising agent.

 

Mark is wonderfully alert, obviously talking to me, but, for the most part, I can’t remember what he was saying. I suspect he was just getting on with being very much alive, and he was letting me record it. I guess that it might have been at that point that I asked him if he would like me to get him some disposable cameras. I knew the answer before I asked.

 

He was still handsome, thin but handsome, with a fashionable goatee beard thing, just on his chin, in the middle of his otherwise cleanly-shaven face. I would guess that he was around 34 at the time. We didn’t really discuss age and birthdays.

 

Come to think of it, it was about one year after I had my first New York exhibition ‘Saints and Survivors in a Time of Plague’. I showed 6 or 8 of the ikons in that show, and ‘The Sodomy Piece’. If my memory serves me rightly, Kelly, one of the ‘ikon’ sitters, introduced me to Mark, and this was how I ended up sitting by his very entertaining bedside. I know, a strange descriptor for that type of vigil, but Mark was full on. I know, ‘ikons’ as opposed to icons, and survivor is missing its ‘u’, but hey, I was American too. Both Rack and Ruin, our titular duo are both represented in these ikons, with perhaps 40 other ‘saints’ and some survivors, even.

 

Mark died 3 weeks later, and left me the disposable cameras, with his last images.

 

I still have them.

 

An Open Beaver

 

Ray: I know you don’t need me, or anyone else, to say this but, Ruin, you’ve done great! And of course far more than great.

 

Ruin: I am not very confident about it, but I am doing it anyway. We get as far as we get.

 

You too.

 

Thank you for saying that. I got your message just as I was going to bed. Yes, to your list above...No interest in (sex, alcohol, travel, parties, people)...I am there too, completely. The rest is extra, though I have said that before. I am still planning to write until I drop, for no other reason other than I enjoy it, and it explains things to oneself.

 

I needed the musk of aging male. That wasn't a choice either, just a happenstance, debatably imprinted during the abuse, but more likely there from the beginning, that missing father stuff. Yes, we are doomed (doomed I tell you, doomed, intoned as a comic aside), that has never been not so, from the beginning of time, and will never be any different. Everything dies, get over it. It’s that universal story to do with what it means to be mortal, and no bloody big deal, whilst being at the same time, for us, the biggest deal of all.

 

Vermeer, Klimt, Grünewald, all great describers in their own time. I am only interested in the now of Putin, Covid and the rest of the sorry travesty (all of which I love, go figure). The world can sink or blow itself up, I will describe it until I cannot. End of story.

 

I don't mind being a demented fool, and getting HIV was not a mistake, or a misfortune.

 

It was a coping mechanism, like everything else. I must say that I am tired of decent good people. Decent good family people, decent good priests and nuns, decent good businessmen and bank managers, decent good 'professionals' and politicians, decent good artists, decent good billionaires. I am most thankful that I never had to take a machine gun to them all, like some poor unfortunates with access to a machine gun license in America, and elsewhere. I am so pleased I only really ever hurt, damaged, 'killed' myself even. That's decency personified in my book.

 

We did, and are doing, okay, and feck all the begrudgers.

 

Well then, that's all the hard edges knocked off at last!

 

Ray: I feel the same way about my whoremongerings. In the post-ménopausique I can see, rationally, that it is sexual exploitation. I was taking advantage of the disadvantaged: poor women in a developing country.

 

Ruin: The whole world is at it; it's what nature does, red in tooth and claw, and all that cliched stuff. The weak are eaten, that includes everyone, the self even, there is always someone stronger. It's the veneer of dignity and pseudo decency I find offensive, especially that dressed in religion and etiquette, propriety, decency and chivalry.

 

The Conjoined Origins of Chivalry and the Humble Domestic Can Opener (Photo attached below).

 

a 'de Selby' classic essay (currently unavailable).

 

'There's many a slip twixt cup and lip', as the old saying goes.

 

Ruin: I suspect he might need a can opener to use the urinal.

 

Seven: Such beautiful lighting for an isolation of desperation. Nobly knelt before the unthought of his decisions. Very much the religious approach and a hilarious reduction of the original taking the knee.

 

Ruin: and this was years, verily centuries, before the advent of the electric can-opener too.

  

Of course, the knights and Samurai of yore, or whatever local military brute force available, would build chivalrous systems based on manners and church-sanctioned decency. They could afford it through the patronage of the top, vicious, dogs, who themselves had evolved through combining brute force with intelligence. It’s evolution at work, that survival of the fittest, nothing noble about it, except in the same idea that defines the ‘Noble gasses’ in the periodic table. They are a chemical fluke that created a class system, wholly natural and infinitely exploitable, and exploiting. Of course, I have no problem with this, how could I?

 

It’s the dressing it all up as ‘decent’ and ‘dignified’, those with ‘manners’ and ‘breeding’ against the ‘Not quite our class, dear’, and then using those ideas as weapons to control. This is partially what I have a problem with. I also know that this story has been told forever, but that’s possibly why it needs to be told, continuously updating it. I don’t think either that humankind is the only facet of everything that tells ‘stories’. The entirety of everything does, it’s about consciousness. I am afraid I am one of those who believe that everything (and non-thing) is conscious, or as the bible says somewhere “The very stones themselves will cry out”. Stories are that ‘crying out’ made manifest.

 

‘Choice’ would be a fine thing, but in my ‘system’ it doesn’t exist. But you know this already.

 

Either way, it is the system I am going to use to describe. It’s the same one I used for forty years whilst visually describing, now I want to take that into words. Writing, or making art, is not a choice. They are both compulsions and survival mechanisms. I see this true of everything we do, including murder, suicide, rape and whoremongering. Sometimes we have to quarantine ourselves to control these compulsions. Those of us who don’t have the compulsion to rape and murder are very lucky indeed.

 

I suspect that empathy grows out of that seedbed, the recognition that we are all capable of the worst atrocities, but by sheer happenstance, and luck, we haven't had to utilise those methods as, what appears to be, our only route for survival. We accidentally, and thankfully, found other ways, in keeping with our natures and conditioning. You gotta luv Darwin.

 

❤️

 

That heart was for Charles, not for my statement.

 

By the way, your name is Ray in the 'book'. I was going to just use 'J', but that, of course, suggests its own name.

 

Ray: As life wears on, and, on reflection, I have come around to your understanding of the meaning of the word ‘choice’. For example, I have no choice about testosterone withdrawal taking away my libido or interest in sex, just as I had no choice about its onset, aged 12, and everything that arose from that. But I do suspect there are categories of choice/no-choice, and that example of the no-choice effect of hormones on behaviour is but one. As far as choice governs conduct, I know I’d be lying if I said I had no choice about whether or not to have sex with a prostitute: it was always a conscious choice, as was the choice to use condoms, even if the libidinous impulse itself wasn’t. Those choices we *are* responsible for, I think, like it or not. And when it comes to crime and law-breaking, criminal law holds us responsible.

 

I am very glad that I was fortunate enough to be able to escape marrying someone I don’t love, having children I don’t want, and doing a dead-end job I hate, to keep all that going. I think that is the lot of many heterosexual men. I can see how that might generate resentment and violence. All thanks to the hormones which make all this happen.

 

Ruin: Yes, to that, but there are other, equally powerful, drivers at work, an infinite number of them, even. I don't see self-quarantining as a 'choice' either, it's a survival mechanism, as is my cuckoo instinct, my moving into already built nests. Anyway, all that is my 'starting point', even if I am wrong.

 

I am somewhat of a mind with Miro on that one, start with a point (a full stop, even), then take that point for a walk. Start with an idea, erroneous or not (who's right and who is wrong anyway?) and begin to walk it forward.

   

Screw shutter speed, aperture on your

pictorial minds children, photography is poetry

not a technical task, Unlearning photography

Is what I believe, Through your .....ummm

releasing the serpent, wrapped within you

You do achieve, When you decipher

Pictorial pain pathos, Unmarried to grief

I believe as a photographer , You have written a poem, turned a new leaf

 

Theodore Johnson,

2017 National Fellow, New America

Senior Fellow, Brennan Center for Justice

Tabula Rasa (’ täbyoŏlə ˈräsə; ˈräzə) refers to an absence of preconceived ideas or predetermined goals; a clean slate. The phrase carries baggage from belief systems in which the human mind at birth is viewed as having no innate ideas. Denying what is obvious is praticed as a gesture of resistance by some of the artists, most or all of whom are affected, however indirectly, by the notions derived from existentialism and the nothingness of existence, ennui. Inspired curatorially by the concept of residual information that persists after erasure, the exhibition is one of several to date by Evonne M. Davis concerning the nature of knowing, learning and unlearning.

 

ORIGIN Latin, literally ’scraped tablet,’ denoting a tablet with the writing erased.

 

Artists: Dave Beck, Katrina Bello, Michael Davies, Brian DeLevie, Gary Duehr, Maria Emilov, Jonathan Franco, Erik Hanson, Greg Leshe, Casey Lynch, Carol Petino, Kara Rooney, Ryan Schroeder, Joshua Schwebel, Travis LeRoy Southworth, Ian Summers, Alexis West

 

Please Visit iansummersartwork.com

Nesting Purple (Grass) Tuskfish, Fly Point Marine Reserve, Nelson Bay, New South Wales

 

This wrasse was frantically building a nest at depth about 15 m and allowed me to position my camera 20 cm away without any fear. I am guessing this was partly because of the overwhelming urge to build a nest and procreate, and partly because fish unlearn their distrust of humans in true no take marine reserves.

 

Fly Point Marine Reserve is one of those rare marine reserves which are a true no-take marine reserve where the marine eco system flourishes relatively unhindered by the destruction of line and spear fishing.

 

Canon Powershot G7x Mark III, Ano V2200UV Video Light + Sea&Sea YS-D1 Strobe. May 2021.

 

Unlearn.ca

Alji

age 59

Swansea

Great Britain

Married.

 

My 348 th poem with an introduction

 

Alji

you are a mystic

yet so domestic

on your starched soul

marks of love

of your dears wife s lipstick

knowledge over brimming

Re-echoing from the tip of a drumstick

 

Alji is Welsh highly erudite, in matters astrological, astral and body and soul.. He is my friend and mentor on Buzznet.. this is a line as a comment to him on my post.

 

I wanted to dump Alji in the Arabian Sea but I had not gone to his profile page, I am nasty towards English people before they end up treating me like a dog I bite them. Thomas Hood wrote a poem on me Elegy on the Death of a mad Dog.. I did not die I and my kind of Mad Dogs keeps getting reborn again and again.

I was astonished when Alji did not take offence simply with a poker face said that he was Welsh.

We became friends.. I am indeed humbled and I mean it for his regards for me and vice versa..

I now know why he opted for Buzznet and not Fotothing.

Buzznet is where you meet the Bizarre dressed like me, or dressed in a Tuxedo like Alji.. of course the best time that Marc looked dressed was at his sand pappered wedding.. the linen suit, the smile and here I must tell you even the sands paid homage to Azzie..

She looked like a born again Goddess thar she is.

Much before Marc came into her life..

In case there is a power failure just call for Azzie she will light up the entire surroundings.

So when Aljie sent me a link for Marc And Azzies wedding I knew that Alji and I have the same love for the same people.. here I have dared to dress Alji like me, I know his dear wife will give me a dressing down to.. but I had to make him look like me and Aunty Abby has deserted me , finds Alji cute I thought of playing my Bollywoods Most Wanted Designer No1 on my great and highly gifted Welsh Friend...The Inimitable Aljie.

Firoze Shakir.

 

comment added to this post.

  

[delete] drunkgeko: 05/17/2006 11:38 PM

Inimitable, perhaps, but tricked, here, obviously! ;>

 

[delete] photographerno1: 05/17/2006 11:46 PM

you alji and me

the unholy trinity

i shoot pictures i dont see

you hear and mostly disagree

alji he talks with mouth shut

this you will agree

it is called digital hokery pokery.

 

Through Aljie I put the Yogic Kundalini uncoiling the Serpent into my art of Unlearning Photography , today after a month I shot two pictures on negative of Tareen the Terrible and her sister Mehnoor..

Aljie is My Master

El Gekko is also my Master

Tom DOYOULIKE IT is my American Photo Guru , he eloped with a Emily Dick-in-son type working for Buzznet Support leaving no forwarding address.He deleted all his pictures no , clue if he ever existed I am the only one that has his pictures plastered all over the cyberspace..

 

#aljie

#beggarpoet

#firozeshakir

#buzznet

This is my first shot with DSLR. Got some learning and unlearning to do now!

www.ashevillage.org/permaculture-school

Frickelfest (I love it)

 

sound.westhost.com/why-diy.htm

 

Why DIY?

Contrary to popular belief, the main reason for DIY is not (or should not be) about saving money. While this is possible in many cases (and especially against 'top of the line' commercial products), there are other, far better reasons to do it yourself.

 

The main one is knowledge, new skills, and the enormous feeling of satisfaction that comes from building your own equipment. This is worth far more than money. For younger people, the skills learned will be invaluable as you progress through life, and once started, you should continue to strive for making it yourself wherever possible.

 

Each and every new skill you learn enables the learning processes to be 'exercised', making it easier to learn other new things that come your way.

 

Alvin Toffler (the author of Future Shock) wrote:- "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

 

This is pretty much an absolute these days, and we hear stories every day about perfectly good people who simply cannot get a new job after having been 'retrenched' (or whatever stupid term the 'human resources' people come up with next). As an aside, I object to being considered a 'resource' for the corporate cretins to use, abuse and dispose of as they see fit.

 

The skills you learn building an electronics project (especially audio) extend far beyond soldering a few components into a printed circuit board. You must source the components, working your way through a minefield of technical data to figure out if the part you think is right is actually right. Understanding the components is a key requirement for understanding electronics.

 

You will probably need to brush up on your maths - all analogue electronics requires mathematics if you want to understand what is going on. The greater your understanding, the more you have learned in the process. These are not trivial skills, but thankfully, they usually sneak up on you. Before you realise it, you have been working with formulae that a few years ago you would have sneered at, thinking that such things are only for boffins or those really weird guys you recall from school.

 

Then there is the case to house everything. You will need to learn how to perform basic metalworking skills. Drilling, tapping threads, filing and finishing a case are all tasks that need to be done to complete your masterpiece. These are all skills that may just come in very handy later on.

 

Should you be making loudspeakers, then you will learn about acoustics. You will also learn woodworking skills, veneering, and using tools that you may never have even known existed had you not ventured into one of the most absorbing and satisfying hobbies around.

 

Ok, that's fine for the younger generation(s), but what about us 'oldies'? We get all the same benefits, but in some cases, it is even possible to (almost) make up for a lifetime spent in an unrewarding job. As we get older, the new skills are less likely to be used for anything but the hobby, but that does not diminish the value of those skills one iota.

 

However, it's not all about learning, it's also about doing. Few people these days have a job where at the end of the day they can look at something they built. Indeed, in a great many cases, one comes home at the end of the day, knowing that one was busy all day with barely time for lunch, yet would be hard pressed to be able to say exactly what was achieved. What would have happened if what you did today wasn't done? Chances are, nothing would have happened at all - whatever it was you did simply wasn't done (if you follow the rather perverse logic in that last statement ).

 

Where is the satisfaction in that? There isn't any - it's a job, you get paid, so are able to pay your bills, buy food and live to do the same thing tomorrow.

 

When you build something, there is a sense of pride, of achievement - there is something to show for it, something tangible. No, it won't make up for a job you hate (or merely dislike), but at least you have created something. Having done it once, it becomes important to do it again, to be more ambitious, to push your boundaries.

 

Today, a small preamp. Tomorrow, a complete state of the art 5.1 sound system that you made from raw materials, lovingly finished, and now provides enjoyment that no store-bought system ever will.

  

sound.westhost.com/why-diy.htm

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” —Alvin Toffler #quote #learning

www.ashevillage.org/permaculture-school

As long as you feel that there's nothing new in #PLE #MOOC #connectivism... you haven't yet taken the first step toward experimenting & getting inspired. Your #PLE is there to help you!!!

 

- ConnectIrmeli -

inspired by #PLE_SOU www.pleconf.com/

 

Pay attention to your surroundings today. Make a photo of something you walk by every day without noticing.

"Exploring Race, Representation, and History in Children's Literature" This session for early childhood teachers, hosted by Teaching for Change's D.C. Area Educators for Social Justice and Project Unlearn on 1/26/2019, provided time for early childhood teachers to explore how to address issues of race, representation, and history in developmentally appropriate ways. The session was held at the beautiful Eaton Hotel in DC. Two children's books were provided to participants, courtesy of NMAAHC (where the session was originally scheduled) and donations from publishers. This session was in preparation for DC Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. Learn more about the week of action here: www.dcareaeducators4socialjustice.org/black-lives-matter-...

<3

Copyright © 2011

  

youtu.be/nBkhXtgqyps

  

you've never done nothin, but build to destroy

you play with [our world] like its your little toy

you put a gun in my hand and you hide from my eyes

and then you turn and run farther when the fast bullets fly

 

like judas of old, you lie and decieve,

a world war can be won.... you want me to believe.

but i see thru your eyes and i see thru your brain~

 

like i see thru the water that runs down my drain

 

you fasten all the triggers

for the others to fire

Then you set back and watch ~ while the death count gets higher

you hide in your mansion, while the young peoples blood

flows out of their bodies and is buried in the mud.

 

you've thrown the worst fear, that can ever be hurled

the fear to bring children, into the world

for threatening my baby, unborn and unnamed

you ain't worth the blood that runs in your veins

 

how much do i know? to talk out of turn..

you might say that i'm young, you might say i'm unlearned

but there's one thing i know

tho i'm younger than you

that even Jesus would never forgive what you do

 

let me ask you one question

is your money that good?

will it buy you forgiveness?

do you think that it could?

i think you will find

when your death takes it toll...

that all the money you made

will never buy back your soul..

 

and i hope that you die, and your death will come soon

and i'll follow your casket

on a pale afternoon

and i'll watch while you're lowered

into your deathbed

and i'll stand over your grave

until i'm sure that you're dead.........

 

dylan/ masters of war

 

P E A C E N O W !!!

  

American postcard by Coral-Lee, Rancho Cordova, CA, no. Personality # 18, no. C32309. Photo: Douglas Kirkland. Caption: Anne Bancroft - Star of The Turning Point and other stage and cinematic successes. Ms. Bancroft is the wife of actor-writer-producer-comic Mel Brooks, October 1976.

 

Anne Bancroft (1931-2005), was an American stage and film actress. She made her breakthrough with the general public with her role as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967). She also appeared in several films directed or produced by her husband, Mel Brooks.

 

Anne Bancroft was born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano in The Bronx, New York, in 1931. She was the middle daughter of Michael Italiano, a dress pattern maker, and Mildred DiNapoli, a telephone operator. She was trained at the AADA (American Academy of Dramatic Arts). As Anne Marno, she began her career on television in the 1950s. In 1952, she signed a contract with 20th Century Fox. For her debut, the Film Noir Don't Bother to Knock (Roy Ward Baker, 1952) with Richard Widmark and Marilyn Monroe, she was advised to change her surname. She chose Bancroft because she thought it was a dignified name. After that, she played in the mediocre Sword and Sandal epic Demetrius and the Gladiators (Delmer Daves, 1954) starring Victor Mature, the Film Noir New York Confidential (Russell Rouse, 1955) starring Broderick Crawford and several B movies. By 1957 she grew dissatisfied with the scripts she was getting and after her contract with Fox expired, she left the film business. Bancroft returned to New York where she enrolled in acting classes at HB Studios to "unlearn" some of her film and TV techniques to fulfil her dreams of becoming an accomplished stage performer. In 1958 she won a Tony Award for her role in the play 'Two for the Seesaw' which was filmed in 1962. In 1960 she won another Tony for her role in 'The Miracle Worker' in 1959. Both plays were written by William Gibson.

 

After these Broadway successes, Anne Bancroft returned to Hollywood, where she starred as Annie Sullivan in the film version of The Miracle Worker (Arthur Penn, 1962). She won an Oscar for it, but could not be at the presentation, as she was on Broadway at the time. Bancroft went on to give acclaimed performances in The Pumpkin Eater (Jack Clayton, 1964) and The Slender Thread (Sydney Pollack, 1965) with Sidney Poitier. Her first husband, Martin May, was a lawyer from an oil-rich Texas family. In 1964, she married for the second time, this time to director Mel Brooks. Her worldwide breakthrough was followed by The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967). In it, she played Mrs Robinson, the ultimate 'older woman', who seduces her neighbour's boy - the much younger Benjamin, played by Dustin Hoffman - into a sexual relationship. For this role, she was nominated for an Oscar. She gave birth to a son in 1972. She continued her career with such interesting films as Young Winston (Richard Attenborough, 1972), The Turning Point (Herbert Ross, 1977) with Shirley MacLaine, The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980) and To Be or Not to Be (Mel Brooks, 1983). She made her directorial debut with the film Fatso (), starring Dom DeLuise. The film was financed by her husband's production company, Brooksfilm. She also started to make TV films, including Deep in My Heart (Anita W. Addison, 1999) for which she won an Emmy Award. Bancroft is one of the few people to have won 'The Triple Crown of Acting': an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy. She is also one of the few actresses to win both an Oscar and a Tony for the same role. She was also Tony-nominated in 1978 for 'Golda', in which she played the title character, Golda Meir. She was again nominated for an Oscar for her roles in The Turning Point (Herbert Ross, 1977) and Agnes of God (Norman Jewison, 1985) with Jane Fonda. Her later career highlights include 84 Charing Cross Road (David Hugh Jones, 1987) as the American correspondent of Anthony Hopkins, Torch Song Trilogy (Paul Bogart, 1988) as the mother of Harvey Fierstein) and as one of the villagers in Waking Ned (Kirk Jones, 1998). In 2005, Anne Bancroft died of cancer in New York, at the age of 73. She is buried at the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, NY. Her final film was the animated feature Delgo (Marc F. Adler, Jason Maurer, 2008). It was released posthumously in 2008 and dedicated to her memory.

 

Source: Volker Boehm (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch) and IMDb.

 

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

...photos don't have to be the result of processing or desaturation. Find a monochrome composition and shoot it."

 

Today's gray-scale photo is boost for a reflection as a reply to this tweet by @cristinacost re. personal experiences of using "tech". Edited on March 01, 2010: The blog post referred by @cristinacost is here.

 

I reflected my last six years online during last week. I review that now focusing on what kind of role "tech" has played:

 

2004-2008 - participating a chain of VLE courses. Considering now - it feels very strange that courses (with all that collaborative work!) were closed immediately after the last assignments. But exactly the possibility to learn together online was the biggest factor to keep my studying motivation high. The collaboration was so much more intensive compared to f2f classes I simultaneously had.

 

2008-2009 "tech" became "T-E-C-H". It required as much attention and energy as people in my growing network. All the following I needed to learn starting from the scratch: blogging, microblogging, photoblogging, videoblogging, conferencing and other professional networking tools, People who had been doing all this since 2002 were the most important motivational factor. This meant focus shift from "tech" to people.

 

By 2009 I had learned an attitude consisting of:

*I* learn...

*I* enjoy...

*I* share...

*I* connect...

 

From end 2009 on: LEARNING IS NOT ENOUGH!

I recognize now that the *I learn* phase toward critical thinking was an inevitable stage. It's as inevitable to unlearn it. Staying in the *I learn* / *I enjoy* phase equals remaining an eternal beginner what comes to learning to utilize critical reflection to boost and alter daily routines. Reflection - just like innovation which is the reason why we need to learn critical thinking - must be cut in suitably small pieces. Reflection is a tool to be used upon need - not a continuous way of learning or living. Innovating and being innovated is.

 

==> 2010 -

"Tech" is more important to me than ever because everyone I need - or who needs me re. ongoing project preparations and studies - I reach via social networks. "Tech" has transformed to a kind of background thing though. I don't currently use "tech" at all focusing in the equip in concern. But "tech" is - I would estimate - 95% enabler of everything I currently do. And especially in strengthening, deepening and sharpening the network supporting my unlearning toward wider innovation literacy and competence. "Tech" enabled network is a guarantee for not getting stuck in learning that gradually transforms monochrome like the landscape in the above pic. Other people see it. You don't if your networks do not keep you alert.

 

The Aghori (Sanskrit aghora)[2] are ascetic Shaiva sadhus.

  

The Aghori in Shaivism.

The Aghori are known to engage in post-mortem rituals. They often dwell in charnel grounds, have been witnessed smearing cremation ashes on their bodies, and have been known to use bones from human corpses for crafting kapalas (which Shiva and other Hindu deities are often iconically depicted holding or using) and jewelry. Due to their practices that are contradictory to orthodox Hinduism, they are generally opposed.[3][4]

 

Many Aghori gurus command great reverence from rural populations as they are supposed to possess healing powers gained through their intensely eremitic rites and practices of renunciation and tápasya. They are also known to meditate and perform worship in haunted houses.

 

Aghoris are devotees of Shiva manifested as Bhairava,[5] are monists who seek moksha from the cycle of reincarnation or saṃsāra. This freedom is a realization of the self's identity with the absolute. Because of this monistic doctrine, the Aghoris maintain that all opposites are ultimately illusory. The purpose of embracing pollution and degradation through various customs is the realization of non-duality (advaita) through transcending social taboos, attaining what is essentially an altered state of consciousness and perceiving the illusory nature of all conventional categories.

 

Aghoris are not to be confused with Shivnetras, who are also ardent devotees of Shiva but do not indulge in extreme, tamasic ritual practices. Although the Aghoris enjoy close ties with the Shivnetras, the two groups are quite distinct, Shivnetras engaging in sattvic worship.

 

Aghoris base their beliefs on two principles common to broader Shaiva beliefs: that Shiva is perfect (having omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence) and that Shiva is responsible for everything that occurs – all conditions, causes and effects. Consequently, everything that exists must be perfect and to deny the perfection of anything would be to deny the sacredness of all life in its full manifestation, as well as to deny the Supreme Being.

 

Aghoris believe that every person's soul is Shiva but is covered by astamahapasha ("eight great nooses or bonds") - sensual pleasure, anger, greed, obsession, fear and hatred. The practices of the Aghoris are centered around the removal of these bonds. Sadhana in cremation grounds destroys fear; sexual practices with certain riders and controls help release one from sexual desire; being naked destroys shame. On release from all the eight bonds the soul becomes sadashiva and obtains moksha.[citation needed]

 

History[edit]

 

Aghori in Satopant.

 

An Aghori man in Badrinath smoking hashish or Cannabis from a chillum in 2011.

Although akin to the Kapalika ascetics of medieval Kashmir, as well as the Kalamukhas, with whom there may be a historical connection, the Aghoris trace their origin to Kina Ram, an ascetic who is said to have lived 150 years, dying during the second half of the 18th century.[6] Dattatreya the avadhuta, to whom has been attributed the esteemed nondual medieval song, the Avadhuta Gita, was a founding adi guru of the Aghor tradition according to Barrett (2008: p. 33):

 

Lord Dattatreya, an antinomian form of Shiva closely associated with the cremation ground, who appeared to Baba Keenaram atop Girnar Mountain in Gujarat. Considered to be the adi guru (ancient spiritual teacher) and founding deity of Aghor, Lord Dattatreya offered his own flesh to the young ascetic as prasād (a kind of blessing), conferring upon him the power of clairvoyance and establishing a guru-disciple relationship between them.[7]

 

Aghoris also hold sacred the Hindu deity Dattatreya as a predecessor to the Aghori Tantric tradition. Dattatreya was believed to be an incarnation of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva united in the same singular physical body. Dattatreya is revered in all schools of Tantrism, which is the philosophy followed by the Aghora tradition, and he is often depicted in Hindu artwork and its holy scriptures of folk narratives, the Puranas, indulging in Aghori "left-hand" Tantric worship as his prime practice.

 

An aghori believes in getting into total darkness by all means, and then getting into light or self realizing. Though this is a different approach from other Hindu sects, they believe it to be effective. They are infamously known for their rituals that include such as shava samskara (ritual worship incorporating the use of a corpse as the altar) to invoke the mother goddess in her form as Smashan Tara (Tara of the Cremation Grounds).

 

In Hindu iconography, Tara, like Kali, is one of the ten Mahavidyas (wisdom goddesses) and once invoked can bless the Aghori with supernatural powers. The most popular of the ten Mahavidyas who are worshiped by Aghoris are Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, and Bhairavi. The male Hindu deities primarily worshiped by Aghoris for supernatural powers are manifestations of Shiva, including Mahākāla, Bhairava, Virabhadra, Avadhuti, and others.

 

Barrett (2008: p. 161) discusses the "charnel ground sādhanā" of the Aghora in both its left and right-handed proclivities and identifies it as principally cutting through attachments and aversion and foregrounding primordiality; a view uncultured, undomesticated:

 

The gurus and disciples of Aghor believe their state to be primordial and universal. They believe that all human beings are natural-born Aghori. Hari Baba has said on several occasions that human babies of all societies are without discrimination, that they will play as much in their own filth as with the toys around them. Children become progressively discriminating as they grow older and learn the culturally specific attachments and aversions of their parents. Children become increasingly aware of their mortality as they bump their heads and fall to the ground. They come to fear their mortality and then palliate this fear by finding ways to deny it altogether.[2]

 

In this sense, the Aghora sādhanā is a process of unlearning deeply internalized cultural models. When this sādhanā takes the form of charnel ground sādhanā, the Aghori faces death as a very young child, simultaneously meditating on the totality of life at its two extremes. This ideal example serves as a prototype for other Aghor practices, both left and right, in ritual and in daily life."[8] The Aghoris are also recorded to perform shava sadhana, worship with a corpse.

 

Adherents[edit]

Though Aghoris are prevalent in cremation grounds across India, Nepal, and even sparsely across cremation grounds in South East Asia, the secrecy of this religious sect leaves no desire for practitioners to aspire for social recognition and notoriety. [1]

 

Spiritual headquarters[edit]

Hinglaj Mata is the Kuladevata (patron goddess) of the Aghori. The main Aghori pilgrimage centre is Kina Ram's hermitage or ashram in Ravindrapuri, Varanasi.[9] The full name of this place is Baba Keenaram Sthal, Krim-Kund. Here, Kina Ram is buried in a tomb or samadhi which is a centre of pilgrimage for Aghoris and Aghori devotees. Present head (Abbot), since 1978, of Baba Keenaram Sthal is Baba Siddharth Gautam Ram.

 

According to Devotees, Baba Siddharth Gautam Ram is reincarnation of Baba Keenaram himself. Apart from this, any cremation ground would be a holy place for an Aghori ascetic. The cremation grounds near the yoni pithas, 51 holy centers for worship of the Hindu Mother Goddess scattered across South Asia and the Himalayan terrain, are key locations preferred for performing sadhana by the Aghoris. They are also known to meditate and perform sadhana in haunted houses.

 

Medicine[edit]

Aghori practise healing through purification as a pillar of their ritual. Their patients believe the Aghori are able to transfer pollution and health to and from patients as a form of "transformative healing", due to the believed superior state of body and mind of the Aghori.[10][verification needed]

Stained glass experts at Canterbury Cathedral have just finished work on a magnificent 19ft high window, described as one of their most challenging commissions for many years.

 

The window has been created for a church in Dallas, Texas but before jetting off to the States panels from the window will be on public display in the Treasury area of the Cathedral Crypt from Saturday 4 February (13.30 hrs until 16.00 hrs on this day) until 22 February.

 

The Cathedral’s team of glaziers has been working on the medieval-style window, which is based on Canterbury’s Redemption window in the Corona, for the last two years. Commissions are undertaken by the Stained Glass Studio to offset the cost of conserving the Cathedral’s own historic glass but the Dallas project was not going to be without its headaches for the experienced Canterbury conservators.

 

Director of the Stained Glass Studio Leonie Seliger explained: “It was important to the Episcopalian clergy that the design should pay homage to the original stained glass of Canterbury Cathedral. This was a massive undertaking because the windows here were produced by the greatest stained glass artists of the time so to replicate their work would require an incredible amount of talent and skill.”

 

“First and foremost we wanted to make sure it would be as true to the original as possible, not only in the design but in the iconography and stories. I had long phone calls with their theological adviser about the exact content of the cartoons, different attributes and colours, and it occurred to me this is the same conversation that would have taken place 800 years ago between the Prior and the Glazier – it was as if the distance in time collapsed upon itself.”

Challenges

 

It was not going to be as simple as copying what went before as the new window incorporates different geometric shapes, which meant repositioning many of the features whilst making sure that they told the same story.

 

Areas of Canterbury’s Redemption window have been damaged and replaced over the centuries so to be true to the medieval period, the design of elements – as intricate as faces and wings – had to be borrowed from other medieval glass in the Cathedral and even from France.

 

Getting the actual glass right was to be another challenge as Leonie explained: “Due to building regulations in Texas all new public buildings must include a special energy saving glass. This outer layer of glass has a distinct greenish-brown hue, which meant that we had to choose brighter colours for the stained glass to counteract that. Another challenge was that modern production is so refined that there are very few imperfections in the colours or thickness and we worried that this would deaden the final design. So we contacted the glassblowers who supply us and asked them if it was possible to recreate those lovely variations that you can see in the original medieval glass. And they did. It meant a lot of unlearning for them and some trial and error, but eventually they managed to un-refine their process and produce this marvellous glass.”

 

The final design features three narrow arched windows with three rosettes above. The central lancet depicts the end of the Passion story from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection and then the Ascension with stories from the Old Testament, including Abraham sacrificing his son (pictured right), on either side.

 

Every minute detail has been important as the window is to be used by clergy in Dallas to illustrate Bible stories for young members of the congregation and they plan to use cameras to blow up sections as small as a 50p coin on to large screens during services.

 

Leonie summed up the work: “There is an irony in that aspects of the final window are probably closer to the original work of the medieval stained glass makers than the actual window it’s based on. Also, we did not artificially age the new work, so what you see now is very close to what the windows in Canterbury Cathedral looked like 800 years ago – before surface corrosion and repairs changed their appearance significantly. The completed Dallas window contains a huge number of tiny pieces of glass, more pieces than any other window we have produced in my time here. It was a very ambitious project and one that every member of the stained glass workshop was involved in.”

delete] photographerno1: 10/11/2005 3:57 AM

hi waza thank you..dont ever be bulldozed by photographers or photography.. remember it is you and what you are shooting even the camera does not exist.. UNLEARN PHOTOGRAPHY

you will become one hell of a photographer.. you dont shoot anything,, it is the mountains the swan they call out to you they plead to be given a chance to be seen by the chanceless in some corner of the world called india... this is photgraphy..

i shoot with my eyes closed.. let the thing that you shoot burn an image on the emulsion of your soul first.. the picture will happen,, and i am a godly man.

take care,, any help just buzz me..i envy you alaska..

thoughts like igloos in my mind... waiting for thr ships to sail...

firoze shakir

photographerno1

 

waza: 10/21/2005 12:25 AM

LORD HELP US....

   

And on this day I fell in love with the finest soul and named her The Alaskan Fern.

 

The rest of our escapades and the pitfalls.. the Fears and a Future that is tight fisted and miserly ,wont give an hint to what is in our Destiny interlinked on Buzznet,, and the refrain of my soul on my Dichotomy of Love.

 

And did she really mean God Help Us.

 

And it was re echoed almost simultaneously in Mumbai too.

 

And this is mature love like vintage wine.. mellow ..melodiously

 

reverbrating.. refreshing reinvigorating.. .. oceans apart...but wont let go

 

come what may.

   

photo courtesy

 

waza-aquariusnefarious.buzznet.com/user/photos/?id=2564276

 

Awista Ayub, Director, Fellows Program, New America

 

David Swerdlick,

Assistant Editor, Washington Post Outlook section

  

www.sarpsozdinler.com/

Scenes from a retreat in the Catskills. Nineteen visionaries spend a week at work on new projects and strategies for wholesome and sovereign living.