The Idea of Order at Key West by Wallace Stevens

WS reading the poem

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask.  No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard.
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this?  we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.

If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone.  But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang.  And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker.  Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh!  Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

Theodore Roosevelt's African safari 1909

Roosevelt standing with native hunters over a dead lion during a safari in 1910. Photo credit: Library of Congress.

In March 1909, shortly after the end of his second term, Roosevelt left New York for a safari in Africa. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own proposed writings, Roosevelt hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His party, which included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by Frederick Selous, the famous big game hunter and explorer, killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. 512 of the animals were big game animals, of which 262 were consumed by the expedition. This included six white rhinos. Tons of salted animals and their skins were shipped to Washington; the number of animals was so large, it took years to mount them. The Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums. Of the large number of animals taken, Roosevelt said, "I can be condemned only if the existence of the National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, and all similar zoological institutions are to be condemned."^[37] Although based in the name of science, there was a large social element to the safari. Interaction with many native peoples, local leaders, renowned professional hunters, and land owning families made the safari much more than a hunting excursion. Roosevelt wrote a detailed account of this adventure; "African Game Trails" describes the excitement of the chase, the people he met, and flora and fauna he collected in the name of science.

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt

more safari history-Rooseveldt's safari

Safari Holidays: Brief History Safari has it roots in Arabic via Swahili and means “to make a journey”. Originally, Safaris were essentially trade missions seeking ivory, rhino horn, and slaves. With the coming of Europeans, the Safari began to be associated with exploration and the discovery. And those early European Safaris were huge operations that involved armies of staff and crew along with supplies and weapons. They blazed a trail for scientific safaris by Stanley and Livingstone or Burton and Speke. Many explorers never returned alive. Disease, starvation or death was part of the early African Safari experience.

African Safaris were trendy too. The novels of Rider Haggard, such as King Solomon’s Mines, introduced Allan Quatermain and the African Safari to an entirely new Victorian audience. Inevitably, along with great naturalists and men of science came the hunters. The European colonial ethic was to rule and dominate the people, the mineral resources and the wildlife. The Safari became synonymous with the “Hunt”. Conquering the wild beast and returning with trophies became the Safari’s entire purpose. Great White Hunters like Cornwallis Harris and Frederick Courtenay Selous prospered and by 1850 they were killing 30,000 elephant a year in East Africa. Gradually, this attitude changed. Those same hunters realised that the wildlife they were slaughtering was a finite resource. The first seeds of a conservation ethic were planted.

The Safari gradually began to change as the hunters began to consider themselves as naturalists and experts in bush craft. Selous’ book “A Hunter’s Wanderings In Africa” encouraged a new respect for natural Africa. Ironic though it may be, it’s because of men like Seleous and Harris that the conservation movement got started. That didn’t immediately stop the shooting parties though.

East Africa became the home of the Safari in the early 20th century and an entire industry grew up to cater for the every need of American and European clients keen to bag a trophy. The Guided Safari was born and probably reached its peak in 1909 with Theodore Roosevelt’s Great Safari, which cost £15,000.00 (several millions in today’s value!). Every Safari, whether undertaken by a hunter, naturalist, explorer, conqueror or colonial administrator, needed an army of gun-bearers, interpreters, guides, cooks and porters. Some of the Africans who made Safaris possible were almost as well known to the European public as the white explorers themselves.

By the middle of the last century portered safaris became less common as automobiles took over. Camping Safaris grew in popularity and so too did Photographic Safaris. The Safari Holiday has come a long way from the days of slave trading and over-zealous hunting. However, some elements of the Safari Holiday remain the same : Africa’s staggering natural beauty, the sense of freedom and adventure and the crucial involvement of Africa’s people. A Safari Holiday also remains a highly personal experience.

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Safari bkround/Victorian novels

The word Safara comes from the Arabic meaning “to make a journey” and from that derives the Swahili synonym Safari. Nothing nobler than trade was the purpose of the first Safaris. Coastal Arabs and Swahilis traded for centuries with the African interior and Safari described not only the traders’ expeditions but also their huge caravans. The trophies sought by these 18th century explorers were ivory, rhino horn, and slaves. With the advent of European colonisation and the scramble for “A Place in the Sun”, the Safari began to become associated with exploration and exploitation of natural resources, animal and mineral.

European exploratory safari caravans were large-scale operations that involved a huge contingent of staff and crew along with supplies and weapons. They mapped out the “Dark Continent” and paved the way for scientific exploration. The expeditions of Stanley and Livingstone or Burton and Speke lasted years and involved the sort of preparations that were more commonly associated with equipping a small army. Many explorers never returned alive. Risk as well as adventure was an integral part of any Safari. Disease, starvation or attacks by wild animals or hostile tribes were part and parcel of the African Safari experience: magnificent, but potentially fatal. On the heels of the explorers came the early naturalists including men like William John Burchell, Thomas Ayres and Gustav Adolf Fischer. They were instrumental in identifying several species of animals, categorisation and taxonomy being pretty much the extent of what was considered “science” in those days.

The novels of Rider Haggard, especially his first blockbuster, King Solomon’s Mines published in 1875, introduced its hero Allan Quatermain and the thrill of life in the African Bush to an entirely new Victorian audience. This popular culture influenced generations of young Victorian men, imbuing the Safari with an irresistible allure to match the strong Empire ethic of “duty”. Inevitably, along with great naturalists and men of science came the hunters. Just as the colonial ethic was to rule and dominate the people, so the European sensibility of the time saw nothing wrong with doing the same to the wildlife. The Safari became synonymous with the “Hunt”. Killing the big beast and returning from the hunt with trophies ranging from hides, skins and heads, to an entire animal became the Safari’s sole raison d’être.

from cheesy travel blog

safari trophy pix

all previous from atkinson hunting


trophy hunter.ru pix

Frontier (definition from Nationmaster)

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Frontier

A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary, or of a different nature. Politics is the process by which decisions are made within groups. ...

In the United States, the frontier was the term applied by scholars to the impact of the zone of unsettled land outside the region of existing settlements of Americans. That is, as pioneers moved into the frontier zone they were changed significantly by the encounter. That is what Frederick Jackson Turner called "the significance of the frontier." For example, Turner argued in 1893, one change was that unlimited free land in the zone was available and thus offered the psychological sense of unlimited opportunity, which in turn had many consequences, such as optimism, future orientation, shedding of restraints due to land scarcity, and wastefulness of natural resources.

Throughout American history, the expansion of settlement was largely from the east to the west, and thus the frontier is often identified with "the west." On the Pacific Coast, settlement moved eastward. In New England, it moved north.

'Frontier' was borrowed into English from French in the 15th century with the meaning "borderland," the region of a country that fronts on another country (see also marches). The use of frontier to mean "a region at the edge of a settled area" is a special North American development. (Compare the Australian "outback".) In the Turnerian sense, "frontier" was a technical term that was explicated by hundreds of scholars. Mark or march (or various plural forms of these words) are derived from the Frankish word marka (boundary) and refer to an area along a border, e. ... A tourism sign post Yalgoo, Western Australia The Dingo Fence near Coober Pedy Fitzgerald River National Park in Western Australia Outback refers to remote and arid areas of Australia, although the term colloquially can cover any lands outside of the main urban areas. ...

Colonial frontier

See also: Colonial America, British colonization of the Americas, French colonization of the Americas

In the earliest days of European settlement of the Atlantic coast, the frontier was essentially any part of the forested interior of the continent beyond the fringe of existing settlements along the coast and the great rivers, such as the St. Lawrence, Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna River and James.

English, French, Spanish and Dutch patterns of expansion and settlement were quite different. Only a few thousand French migrated to Canada; these habitants settled in villages along the St. Lawrence river, building communities that remained stable for long stretches; they did not leapfrog west the way the Americans did. Although French fur traders ranged widely through the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watershed, as far as the Rocky Mountains, they did not usually settle down. Actual French settlement in these areas was limited to a few very small villages on the lower Mississippi and in the Illinois Country.^[1] Likewise, the Dutch set up fur trading posts in the Hudson river valley, followed by large grants of land to patroons who brought in tenant farmers who created compact, permanent villages. They did not push westward. ^[2]

In contrast, the English colonies generally pursued a more systematic policy of widespread settlement of the New World for cultivation and exploitation of the land, a practice that required the extension of European property rights to the new continent. The typical English settlements were quite compact and small--under a square mile. Conflict with the Native Americans arose out of political issues, viz. who would rule. Early frontier areas east of the Appalachian Mountains included the Connecticut river valley.^[3] The French and Indian Wars of the 1760s resulted in a complete victory for the British, who took over the French colonial territory west of the Appalachians to the Mississippi River. Americans began moving across the Appalachians into areas such the Ohio Country and the New River Valley.

Canadian frontier

A Canadian frontier thesis was developed by Canadian historians Harold Adams Innis and J. M. S. Careless. They emphasized the relationship between the center and periphery. Katerberg argues that "in Canada the imagined West must be understood in relation to the mythic power of the North." [Katerberg 2003] In Innis's 1930 work The Fur Trade in Canada, he expounded on what became known as the Laurentian thesis: that the most creative and major developments in Canadian history occurred in the metropolitan centers of central Canada and that the civilization of North America is the civilization of Europe. Innis considered place as critical in the development of the Canadian West and wrote of the importance of metropolitan areas, settlements, and indigenous people in the creation of markets. Turner and Innis continue to exert influence over the historiography of the American and Canadian Wests. The Quebec frontier showed little of the individualism or democracy that Turner ascribed to the American zone to the south. The Nova Scotia and Ontario frontiers were rather more democratic than the rest of Canada, but whether that was caused by the need to be self-reliant on the frontier itself or the presence of large numbers of American immigrants is debated. Harold Adams Innis (November 5, 1894-November 8, 1952) was a professor of political economy at the University of Toronto and the author of many seminal works on Canadian economic history and on media and communications.

The Canadian political thinker Charles Blattberg has argued that such events ought to be seen as part of a process in which Canadians advanced a "border"-- as distinct from a "frontier"--from east to west. According to Blattberg, a border assumes a significantly sharper contrast between the civilized and the uncivilized since, unlike with a frontier process, the civilizing force is not supposed to be shaped by that which it is civilizing. Blattberg criticizes both the frontier and border "civilizing" processes.

Canadian Prairies

The pattern of settlement of the Canadian prairies began in 1896, when the American prairie states had already achieved statehood. Pioneers then headed north to the "Last Best West." Before settlers began to arrive, the North West Mounted Police was dispatched to the region. When settlers began to arrive, a system of law and order was already in place and the Dakota lawlessness for which the American "Wild West" was famed did not occur in Canada. Before settlers arrived, the federal government also sent teams of negotiators to meet with the Native peoples of the region. In a series of treaties, the basis for peaceful relations was established and the long wars with the Natives that occurred in the United States largely did not spread to Canada. Like their American counterparts, the Prairie provinces supported populist and democratic movements in the early 20th century. ^[4] Pamphlet advertising the last best West Last best West was a phrase used to market the Canadian prairies to prospective immigrants.

Europe

In the European Union, the frontier is a term used to describe the region beyond the expanding borders of the European Union. The European Union has designated the countries surrounding it as part of the European Neighbourhood. This is a region of primarily less-developed countries, many of which aspire to become part of the European Union itself. Current applicants include Turkey and Croatia. Ukraine has also set itself the primary task of eventually joining the Union, as have many small countries in the Balkans and South Caucasus. Romania and Bulgaria, joined the European Union in 2007. Proposals to admit Turkey have been debated (and rejected), partly on the ground that Turkey is beyond Europe's historic frontier. If all or most East European states become members, the frontier may be the boundaries with Russia and Turkey. The European Neighbourhood is the region beyond the frontier of the European Union.

See also

American Old West
Cabin Rights
Frontier Thesis

The cowboy, the quintessential symbol of the American Old West, circa 1887. ... At an early period in the settlement of the Frontier, pioneers asserted their claims to parts of wild lands by blazing trees around the desired boundary, and later comers customarily recognized the claims: tomahawk rights, they were called. ... Frederick Jackson Turner, author of the Frontier Thesis The Frontier Thesis or Turner Thesis is the conclusion of Frederick Jackson Turner that the wellsprings of American exceptionalism and vitality have always been the American frontier, the region between urbanized, civilized society and the untamed wilderness.

References

US history

• The Frontier In American History by Frederick Jackson Turner
• Billington, Ray Allen. America's Frontier Heritage (1984), an analysis of the frontier experience from perspective of social sciences and historiography
• Billington, Ray Allen. Westward Expansion: A History of the American Frontier (1952 and later editions), the most detailed textbook, with highly detailed annotated bibliographies
• Billington, Ray Allen. Land of Savagery / Land of Promise: The European Image of the American Frontier in the Nineteenth Century (1981)
• Blattberg, Charles Shall We Dance? A Patriotic Politics for Canada (2003), ch. 3, a comparison of the Canadian 'border' with the American 'frontier'
• Hine, Robert V. and John Mack Faragher. The American West: A New Interpretive History (2000), recent textbook
• Lamar, Howard R. ed. The New Encyclopedia of the American West (1998), 1000+ pages of articles by scholars
• Milner, Clyde A., II ed. Major Problems in the History of the American West 2nd ed (1997), primary sources and essays by scholars
• Nichols, Roger L. ed. American Frontier and Western Issues: An Historiographical Review (1986) essays by 14 scholars
• Paxson, Frederic, History of the American Frontier, 1763-1893 (1924)
• Slotkin, Richard, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860 (2000), University of Oklahoma Press

Canada

• Blattberg, Charles Shall We Dance? A Patriotic Politics for Canada (2003), ch. 3, a comparison of the Canadian 'border' with the American 'frontier'
• Cavell, Janice. "The Second Frontier: the North in English-canadian Historical Writing." Canadian Historical Review 2002 83(3): 364-389. ISSN 0008-3755 Fulltext in Ebsco
• Clarke, John. Land, Power, and Economics on the Frontier of Upper Canada. McGill-Queen's U. Press, 2001. 747 pp.
• Colpitts, George. Game in the Garden: A Human History of Wildlife in Western Canada to 1940 U. of British Columbia Press, 2002. 216 pp.
• Forkey, Neil S. Shaping the Upper Canadian Frontier: Environment, Society and Culture in the Trent Valley. U. of Calgary Press 2003. 164 pp.
• Katerberg, William H. "A Northern Vision: Frontiers and the West in the Canadian and American Imagination." American Review of Canadian Studies 2003 33(4): 543-563. ISSN 0272-2011 Fulltext online at Ebsco
• Mulvihill, Peter R.; Baker, Douglas C.; and Morrison, William R. "A Conceptual Framework for Environmental History in Canada's North." Environmental History 2001 6(4): 611-626. ISSN 1084-5453. Proposes a five-part conceptual framework for the study of environmental history in the Canadian North. The first element of the framework analyzes approaches to environmental history that are applicable to the Canadian North. The second element reviews historical forces, myths, and defining characteristics that pertain to the region. A third element of the framework tests the validity of Turner's Frontier Thesis and Creighton's Metropolitan Thesis when applied to northern Canada. The fourth element consists of an overview of major northern environmental trends. The final element consists of four interrelated themes that identify the environmental relationships between northern and southern Canada.

External links

• Turner Thesis text
• Transhumanist.com: Opening Space as a Frontier

---

1. ^ Clarence Walworth Alvord, The Illinois Country 1673-1818 (1918)
2. ^ Arthur G. Adams, The Hudson Through the Years (1996); Sung Bok Kim, Landlord and Tenant in Colonial New York: Manorial Society, 1664-1775 (1987)
3. ^ Allan Kulikoff, From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers (2000)
4. ^ Laycock, David. Populism and Democratic Thought in the Canadian Prairies, 1910 to 1945. 1990; Seymour Martin Lipset, Agrarian Socialism (1950).

Categories: Canadian-American relations | History of United States expansionism

Frontier - Wiki In the United States, the frontier was the term applied to the zone of unsettled land outside the region of existing settlements of Americans.

Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics by Rebecca Solnit

page 2-bold and italics mine

I realized that in order to describe the rich tangle of experience there [at the antinuclear actions at the Nevada Test Site in the late 1980s] I needed to describe, to analyze, to connect, to critique, and to report on both international politics and personal experience. That is, I needed to write as a memoirist or diarist, and as a journalist, and as a critic--and these three voices were one voice in everything except the conventions that sort our experience out and censor what doesn't belong. [...]

Since then, I have been fascinated by trying to map the ways that we think and talk, the unsorted experience wherein one can start by complaining about politics and end by confessing about passions, the ease with which we can get to any point from any other point. Such conversation is sometimes described as being "all over the place," which is another way to say that it connects everything back up. The straight line of conventional narrative is too often an elevated freeway permitting no unplanned encounters or necessary detours. It is not how our thoughts travel, nor does it allow us to map the whole world rather than one streamlined trajectory across it. I wanted more, more scope, more nuance, more inclusion of the crucial details and associations that are conventionally excluded. The convergence of multiple kinds of stories shaped my writing on one way; this traveling by association shaped it in others. Early in my history of walking, I wrote that "if fields of expertise can be imagined as real fields, fenced off and carefully tilled, then the history of walking is a path that trespasses through dozens of fields." So are most unfenced lines of inquiry. I learned two kinds of trespassing at the test site, geographical and intellectual.

Queen Elizabeth II - construction images

stills taken from BBC TV show-QEII final voyage (w/Bruce Peter, GSA)

Strangeways/prison interiors

Strangeways Prison

Strangeways and its image problem

BBC Manchester: Saturday, 4 September, 2004
Manchester Prison, formerly known as Strangeways, hit the headlines in 1990 when a riot ended after a siege lasting 25 days.

Starting in the chapel, the violence claimed the lives of two men and caused damage put at £66m.

Its then governor spoke of "an explosion of evil" as images of a rooftop protest dominated the news.

Although rebuilt at a cost of £55m and even renamed, to most people the prison will always be known as Strangeways.

In 2000, the then governor John Smith said the jail was no longer a "penal dustbin" which saw inmates locked up for 23 hours a day with no access to sanitation in their cells.

But in 2002 inspectors condemned staffing levels there as "unsafe" following cuts of 30% in the workforce.

Work and training

In a report, the Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers also said some prisoners were kept in "degrading conditions", sharing one-man cells with unscreened toilets.

Built in the Napoleonic era, at the time of the 1990 riot the jail contained 1,647 prisoners in accommodation designed for only 970.

The prison takes people jailed and remanded in custody by courts in the Greater Manchester area.

The current regime, with an operational capacity of 1269, includes both full and part time education classes.

Training and work is provided in the workshops and laundry, farms and gardens and the works departments.

There are courses in anger management, alcohol awareness, improving coping skills and courses for prisoners convicted of sex offences.

Strangeways Prison

Strangeways Prison in Southall Street, Manchester was built to replace New Bailey prison in Salford which closed in 1868. It was designed by Alfred Waterhouse in 1861, using the Panopticon (radial) concept that was being employed all over Britain at the time. Waterhouse was assisted by Joshua Jebb, the Surveyor General of Prisons, who had also been involved with the design of London's Pentonville Prison. Construction was completed in 1869 at a cost of £170,000.

The new brick built prison stood on the site of the original Strangeways Park and Gardens, hence its name, and was able to house a 1,000 prisoners. There are two imposing gatehouses and a central dodecagonal hall, with wings A to F radiating off from it. The 234 feet high tower, which was used for heating and ventilation, has been a local landmark ever since it was built. The T-shaped F wing is used to house the administration on ground floor with the prison chapel above. A plaque in the entrance commemorates the official opening on the 25th of June 1868.

Strangeways also became the place of execution for the area after the closure of Salford prison. It initially had a purpose built execution shed in one of the yards, as this was the normal practice for private executions from 1868 up to around the end of World War 1.
The later 20th century condemned cell and execution room were situated at the end of 'B' wing in the central area. Strangeways had a permanent gallows, one of the few English prisons to do so, up to the abolition of capital punishment. In total, there were 100 hangings carried out within its walls, all in private. Twenty eight men and one woman were hanged there between 1869 and 1899, the first being a young man of 20 called Michael Johnson, who was hanged by William Calcraft for murder on the 29th of March 1869.

A further 71 people were executed at Strangeways in the 20th century - 68 men and 3 women. In the latter part of this period, executions became quite rare - no one was to be hanged there between 1954 and 1962. James Smith was executed in that year and then one of the last two UK hangings of all was carried out at Strangeways at 8.00 a.m. on the 13th of August 1964. Gwynne Owen Evans (real name John Robson Walby) was hanged by Harry Allen (assisted by Royston Rickard) for the murder of John West, a laundryman, in the course of robbing him in April 1964. Peter Anthony Allen was hanged at the same moment in Liverpool's Walton prison for his part in the crime. Murder committed in the course of robbery was still a capital crime under the 1957 Homicide Act.

There were 4 double hangings, all the rest being carried out individually. William Calcraft officiated at the first 3 executions within the walls of Strangeways (Michael Johnson plus Patrick Durr in December 1870 and Michael Kennedy in December 1872) before William Marwood replaced him and introduced the long drop method.

The condemned block is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of one of the hangmen who officiated there. Staff on night duty have reported seeing a mysterious man in a dark suit carrying a small briefcase. He is always seen walking along 'B' wing from just outside the condemned cell towards the central control area. When they try to follow this dark suited man, he vanishes just before the old iron staircase leading up to the main office. One wonders if this could be John Ellis who committed suicide in 1932.

more on executions

Artist Stelarc gets an extra ear implanted into his arm

The Guardian, Tuesday 14 April 2009

A man with 3 ears at the Edinburgh Science Festival. Performance artist Stelios Arcadiou, known as Stelarc, says his extra ear, made of human cartilage, is an augmentation of the body's form. Photograph: Murdo Macleod

A man with three ears will appear at Edinburgh Napier University today to talk about his "extra" ear, which has been surgically implanted on to his forearm.

Australian performance artist Stelios Arcadiou, known as Stelarc, had the third ear created from cells in a lab in 2006. At the Edinburgh Science International Festival today, Stelarc will discuss his plans to install transmitters in his new ear, so people listen to what it is hearing online. He also hopes to grow a soft earlobe using his own stem cells.

The ear is made of human cartilage. Stelarc, who is visiting professor at Brunel University School of Arts, took 10 years to find a surgeon willing to perform the operation. He uses medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, virtual reality and the internet in his work.

"I'm trying to help you, to keep you."

Friday 1 April 2005 Guardian

Strangeways here we come

On April 1 1990 a riot in Manchester triggered a wave of protests in prisons across Britain.

Strangeways prison rooftop protest, 1990. Photograph: Denis Thorpe

On April Fools' Day, 15 years ago, 300 prisoners filed into the chapel at Strangeways prison, Manchester, to attend the Church of England service. They heard a sermon from a visiting Church Army preacher, and at 11am, the prison's chaplain, Noel Proctor, rose to continue the service.

What happened next was tape recorded, along with the sermon. The transcript of the tape reads thus:

Noel Proctor: "After that remarkable message that has ..."

A prisoner (later identified as Paul Taylor): "I would just like to say, right, that this man has just talked about the blessing of the heart and how a hardened heart can be delivered. No it cannot, not with resentment, anger and bitterness and hatred being instilled in people."

(noise, over which) A prisoner: "Fuck your system, fuck your rules."

Proctor: "Right lads, sit down."

(More noise)

Proctor: "Right lads, down. Down. Come on, this is no way to carry on in God's house."

(More noise)

A prisoner: "Fuck your system."

Proctor: "Right lads, sit down. This is completely out of order. Sit down."

A prisoner: "Why is it [out of order]? It's been waiting to happen forever. It will never change."

Proctor: "Come on. This is terrible."

(More noise; banging, shouting, cheering)

Proctor: "All of you who want to go back to your cells, go to the back of the church please."

A prisoner: "What? You're a fucking hypocrite, you."

Proctor: "I'm trying to help you, to keep you."

A prisoner: "Leave it, mate."

(More noise until microphone goes dead)

rest of article

Steve McCaffery

reading from Carnival panel 2a (portion of above)

from Wiki
Steve McCaffery's poetry attempts to break language from the logic of syntax and structure to create a purely emotional response.^[2] He has created three-dimensional structures of words and has released a number of sound and video works, often in collaboration with other poets.^[3]

reading from book, Panopticon -->lense/photography/juxtaposition

general info/links

Kenneth Goldsmith

neither fish nor fowl

http://www.answers.com/topic/neither-fish-nor-fowl

Also, neither fish nor flesh; neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. Not one or the other, not something fitting any category under discussion. For example, They felt he was neither fish nor fowl--not qualified to lead the department, yet not appropriate to work as a staff member either. This expression appeared in slightly different form in John Heywood's 1546 proverb collection ("Neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring") and is thought to allude to food for monks ( fish, because they abstained from meat), for the people (flesh, or meat), and for the poor (red herring, a very cheap fish).

full text of proverb (confusing layout)

David Antin - self definition as Euglena (neither plant nor animal)

from Q&A at UPenn accessed at
http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Antin.php

UPenn student:
"Are you a poet, do you intend to be a poet, um, do you think about your own categorization, or how do you categorize yourself?"

David Antin:
"When i think of myself, which is not as much as all that, and not as necessarily so frequently, what comes to mind is something i learned in biology that there is a microorganism called a euglena. And a euglena has chloroplasts which allows it to absorb solar energy and turn it into metabolic energy and material, so that it ingests like a plant.

It also has a whip-like attachment that is called the flagella. And this flagella allows it to whip around and capture prey.

My question is about the euglena is it a plant or is it an animal and i don't know which it is, and neither do the biologists know what it is, and i have always regarded this as my identity."

David Antin - "talk-pieces"

From Wiki

David Antin (born in New York City, February 1, 1932) is a United States poet and critic. In the late 1960s, Antin began performing extemporaneously, improvising "talk poems" at readings and exhibitions. In the late 1960s Antin moved with his wife, the writer and performance artist Eleanor Antin, to Southern California to take up a post at the University of California, San Diego, in the newly formed and experimental Visual Arts Department. He served for a time as gallery director and much longer as a professor there. In the early 1970s, his influence on a nascent group of conceptual photographers among the graduate students there was powerful. He has a fellowship in the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEH. He also received the PEN Los Angeles Award for Poetry in 1984. Antin lives in San Diego with his wife.

Works

David Antin has said that as a child he wanted to invent things, and that to him this meant he must either become a scientist or an artist. His early published poetry, collected in "Selected Poems: 1963-1973," was experimental, using found or "readymade" texts to address issues of language. In "Definitions for Mendy," a poem from this book, he uses definitions of "loss" from both a dictionary and an insurance handbook to fuel a meditation on the death of a friend. In his "Novel Poems" from the same book, he pages through popular novels, choosing a line or a phrase from each page to assemble poems.

After gathering some experience reading his poems, he began to find the convention of reading his own previously-written poetry stultifying. He turned instead to improvising poems that are a kind of thinking out loud about the act of creating meaning. The themes of these "talk-pieces" are often inspired by their location and audience. The talk pieces can be viewed alternately as poetry that seeks to re-connect with oral and performative aspects of the poetic tradition, as philosophy in the tradition of Plato's dialogues or Wittgenstein's lectures, or as a "site-specific" artwork like Robert Smithson's earthworks. He tape-records each performance and often composes subsequent written versions, which are collected in books like "talking at the boundaries," "tuning" and "what it means to be avant garde."

In his talk pieces Antin blends personal narrative with philosophical reflection to address issues of meaning. In "tuning," for example, he critiques the concept of "understanding" and offers an alternative model. In "what it means to be avant garde" he suggests that the avant garde attempts to address not the future but the present. In "the fringe" he tells a story about resistance to the Vietnam War that offers as a central figure a bucket containing the urine of several Guggenheim poets.

more:

interview

audio from UPenn

general backround/more links

Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin

Diomede II, 1989-90, from Projects 1981-1990
Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin
Both Russian, born 1955
Etching 11 x 17
©1990 Brodsky & Utkin, courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York

Smout Allen-Geofluidic Landscape

The Geofluidic Landscape

The passage of abundant water on the Oslo site provides a source of kinetic energy that invades the building. Trenches, gullies, and reservoirs are cut into the rock to channel water and counterbalances and weights shift building pieces. The floors become walls, panels move to reveal new spaces, and garden beds are raised and tilted toward the sun.

Smout Allen-Blooming Landscape, Deep Surface

http://www.smoutallen.com/

Smout Allen-Ballistic Devices

Ballistic Devices

A series of ballistic instruments are designed to momentarily occupy the space between the sky and the ground. Camouflage strategies can be designed to accentuate and reveal figure and position. The instruments use shape, shine, shadow, and silhouette to enable visual recognition of form and consequently to examine the apparent depth of the horizon.

Three ballistic devices are deployed in the deep space of the horizon.

Adaptive Waveform Control?

http://www.springerlink.com/content/ecblyg2n3nbpcwkt/

	Adaptive Waveform Control in a Data Transceiver for Multi-speed IEEE1394 and USB Communication Book Series Lecture Notes in Computer Science Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg ISSN 0302-9743 (Print) 1611-3349 (Online) Volume Volume 3637/2005 Book Evolvable Systems: From Biology to Hardware DOI 10.1007/11549703 Copyright 2005 ISBN 978-3-540-28736-0 Category Applications DOI 10.1007/11549703_19 Pages 198-204 Subject Collection Computer Science SpringerLink Date Monday, September 19, 2005

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Applications

Adaptive Waveform Control in a Data Transceiver for Multi-speed IEEE1394 and USB Communication

(1)	MIRAI, Advanced Semiconductor Research Center, AIST, Tsukuba Central 2, 1-1-1 Umezono, Tsukuba 305-8568, Japan

(2)	Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennoudai, Tsukuba 305-8577, Japan

Abstract

This paper proposes an adaptive waveform control in a data transceiver and demonstrates an adaptive transceiver LSI with a waveform controller. The LSI optimizes on-site transmission performance, with adjustments based on measurements for the whole transmission system, including cable properties. Utilizing genetic algorithm (GA), our adjustment method has achieved a transmission speed that is four times faster (1.6GHz) than current standards (400MHz) for IEEE1394.