I just realized that the first position is a tough one to occupy. Where do I belong? What can connect to me? Will the move be a ‘good’ beginning? I’ll pick number 2 on this empty board.
Move content:
"lIn the beginning of years, when the world was so new and
all, and the Animals were just beginning to work for Man,…. they held a palaver, and an indaba, and a punchayet, and a
pow-wow on the edge of the Desert"
This quote obviously connects to social media, but it also reflects the many places all of us are from, all communicating together -using one language together, but each with our own languages at home. Through social media I have become inspired to learn another language as well.
On the other hand, the story is about the world being "so new and all", which refers in this case to the digital world of possibilites we are exploring at the moment. We are working together as the animals did in the first days in this story.
On a side note, one could also say that those who choose to neglect these new tools as playing a role in education will at some point have missed the boat and will have the ‘humph’ poor camel also received from the Djinn for not showing any interest in the development of the new world.
I’m so glad Illya started this game off around our topic here at SMiELT, the first game was wonderfully free, and this one can have focus and connection with the rest of the work here, so we get to see both styles of play.
I also think Illya’s is playing a mini HipBone Game right here in this move, with its various languages, its palaver and indaba and punchayet and pow-wow, and with the focus on community / communication, and with its new world / fresh start — so I am going to give out another of those exceedingly rare little connectivity tokens here, that indicate linking the game to its context in a particularly rich way.
This move is dedicated to those of us who are creating our own personal learning networks as guided by our own interests and with the help of knowledgeable guides on the sides.
Move title:
King
Space 4
Move content:
This move is based on a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. and is connected to Illya’s Pow wow move.
The book is written by Doreen Rappaport, a well-respected writer of historical fiction in the U.S. The illustrator is Bryan Collier. Bryan mixes paper images enhanced with his own painting to create stunning collages.
The connection to Illya is that my move also is inspired by a children’s book.
The quote is connected to my own experience with social media in the Smilet08 course. I have discovered that in the context of social media that I can participate and even contribute to discussions that are taking place all over the world. It was a scary proposition for me to connect my blog to others. It is downright frightening for me to be followed on Twitter by the likes of Clay Burell and Doug Johnson. Somehow, though, I have gained confidence. I feel comfortable with the tools and am nurturing the voice that I express through them.
I am inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr., who found a way to connect with people around the world without the same social media tools that we have available today. Mostly, I hope that he will inspire me to connect with the people I work with every day. The students, the teachers, the staff - all of whom are "as good as anyone" to connect to.
The art of connecting, whether it be through international, national or local venues, is the "social" part social media that I have really done a lot of thinking about in this course. I am as good as anyone when it comes to living and learning in this world.
This post by Ewan McIntosh was the very first article I read about the social web. I think his blog was black at that time.
"These are the early days at the beginning of the renaissance," I read.
I couldn’t help being hooked. Although I didn’t quite understand what
he was talking about I sensed this could be a real change for my
students’ approach to language, I couldn’t even imagine what the Social
Web would mean to me.
Link Claimed:
4 - Pow-Wow
Social Media certainly was "so new and all" a year ago. Have a look at
his last question, lots of changes since then and still lots of changes
to take place. Isn’t that fascinating?
Comment
This SMiELT Pow-wow is sooo inspiring.
Sarah, I’ll print your move, and stick it in my computer. Several copies, better; and stick them all around.
I see now I didn’t claim my link to Sarah’s. sorry
Link claimed
4 - King
When I first read Ewan’s post, I felt everybody knew a lot and I
knew nothing.I thought I would never catch up; well this is what
happened.
Fortunately I soon discovered that all this wasn’t about the tools, it
was about the content. It was not about teaching, it was about learning.
Sarah, I love your link! I’m glad there are others out there that turn to children’s books for inspiration :-). I find your quote so powerful that I share Gabriella’s desire to copy and distribute it. Words to live by!
I am thinking of Gary Snyder’s Smokey the Bear Sutra. This is a great, hilarious, radical, ecological poem, in which Gary Snyder — a pretty terrific poet anyway, who introduced Jack Kerouac to Zen among other things — prentends he’s the ancient and highly contemporary Buddha, Smokey, giving a sermon to all of us, ants and trees and mountains and all.
Very funny, very plainspoken, very pro-earth, you can and might want to read the whole thing at:
to "a pow-wow on the edge of the Desert" — the sermon is addressed from "this corner of the infinite void" to "to all the assembled elements and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings,
the flying beings, and the sitting beings - even the grasses,
to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from a seed,
assembled there" — quite a pow wow.
to ML King and "You are as good as anyone" — Snyder’s poem is a great praise of all sorts of folks, "those who love the woods and rivers, Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick
people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful
children" — quite a bunch of different folks to be as good as.
and to "These are the early days at the beginning of the renaissance" because as Snyder claims,
those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada. Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.
Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.
Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts.
Will always have ripened blackberries to eat and a sunny spot
under a pine tree to sit at. AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT".
Charles, are you allowed to play King? I thought you couldn't play the areas in red.
btw- my son has a Smokey the Bear, so maybe I'll remember this some day when he is grown up with kids of his own to pass it on to. I'll certainly pass the story on as well!
Ah — no — the colors on the board are just decorative. What you can’t do is claim a link to a move that doesn’t have a line directy connecting it to your own move. So playing in 9, I can link to 2, 4, and 8 — in fact, I’m supposed to!
Thanks for asking, and giving me the chance to clarify — I’ll try to remember to make that clear to people in future, too.
Theodore Zeldin is an English historian, philosopher, writer and also the President of the Oxford Muse Foundation. I have recently read his book An Intimate History of Humanity, which exposes human feelings, habits, emotions and perceptions of common people in many different civilisations across time .We see how the hopes and fears of the common man interact with each
other. Some key themes surface: self-actualization versus
comfort, freedom versus the need for companionship, the need for
belonging to one's culture versus the desire to escape from its
limitations. How people, through knowing and understanding each other
move from relationships defined by power to those based on compassion,
co-operation and friendship.
There are many wonderful quotes from that book and also from his other book Conversation, like for instance:
"Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and
habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform
them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in
new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards:
it creates new cards."
Links claimed:
the small link to Smokey the Bear - because in Gary Snyder's tale, Smokey is a new and paradoxical card which embodies the complex global world we live - the symbol brings together East and West, the Buddhist concept of non-duality (Wrathful but Calm, Austere but Comic).
However, I feel Smokeys discourse is totalitarian as he will only illuminate those who help him while those who hinder or slander him...HE WILL PUT THEM OUT, like the fire in the forest he protects. Although fire and diamond may be symbols for wisdom, enduring love, eternal flame, they are also connected to hate/genocide/burning at the stake. A diamond represents "purity" and the burning flames are used to purify the world, ethnic cleansing.
It is a very enlightening story and how well he managed to "spark" all these images.
Have a nice move to your new place , Charles and I expect a house-warming party invite once you are comfortable there. We could do with a hipbone party :-) Now, how would that look?
Charles’s move immediately reminded me of this poem.
I’m not too keen on Ginsberg. However, I do enjoy reading and rereading this poem.
It is not the product of musing, but the outcome of a
situation. I’ve always sensed that there’s a meeting point between
poetry and drama. I cannot back this idea scientifically, but this poem
is just one proof of my intuition.
The setting, -not a welcoming one, really; the two characters; the
conflict -grime against purity.There’s even action "So I grabbed up the
skeleton thick sunflower and stuck it at my side like a scepter". And
an audience "and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack’s soul too, and
anyone who’ll listen". He finishes the scene with a monologue.
I particularly like these lines:
Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a
flower? when did you look at your skin and
decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive?
Claimed Links
9- Smokey
Well, both are Sutras; that’s obvious. Kerouac is present in the scene, that’s obvious, too.
An appropriate environment to chant Smokey the Bear’s war spell. Without war spells Grinsberg manages to vsjra-shovel the grime by bringing into surface his own memory of a sunflower. Does he WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT? His fans might think he does.
5-Theodore Zeldin
"Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts of the soul", a meeting of minds.
"Look at the Sunflower, he said"
"—I rushed up enchanted—it was my first sunflower,memories of
Blake—my visions—", and he goes on with memories from Harlem, where
we can assume he read Blake. Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and
habits
"We’re not our skin of grime, we’re not our dread bleak dusty
imageless locomotive, we’re all beautiful golden sunflowers inside" When minds meet, they don’t just exchange facts: they transform
them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in
new trains of thought.
Kerouac, in turn, refers to this situation and paraphrases Ginsberg’s
poem to comfort his friend Stella Sampas in a letter -old
conversational medium. He creates new cards. (Kerouac: Selected Letters (1940-1956) edited by Ann Charters; Viking, Penguin Books, 1995; page 528
Comment Here you can listen to the poem.
Blake’s Sunflower is here.
Agree with you, Gabriela. Number 6 is a really though one - it should link to your Sunflower, King, Smokey and Pow-wow. Let’s see who will face the challenge!
The
song’s meaning seems to have been hotly debated over the years. Is
it about drugs? Is it, as the songwriter said, a
nostalgic look back at time spent in the desert? The song, while not
great music probably, is one I remember well from 1972. The chorus
goes like this:
I’ve
been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be
out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
cause
there ain’t no one for to give you no pain
La, la
Links
claimed:
To
pow-wow in 1 - This song has been floating around in my brain ever
since Illya posted “Pow-wow”. The connection to the desert is
obvious. Kipling’s Pow-wow is on the edge of the desert, where there
are people, as opposed to actually in the desert where the song tells
us there are no people to cause us any trouble.
One
hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in
the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years
later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American
society and finds himself an exile in his own land. …
America
said
The
ocean is a desert with its life underground
And a perfect disguise
above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the
humans will give no love
The
ocean of prosperity that King talked about is a mask that hides the
true situation in this country from the eyes of most people. It is a
kind of desert. And the African American who is an exile in his own
land can give testimony to the fact that there is little love to be
found in the cities, little compassion for people.
To
Smokey in 9– The poem says “Wearing the blue work overalls
symbolic of slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a
civilization that claims to save but often destroys…” Another
example of man’s lack of humanity, as cited above.
To
Sunflower in 10 – Ginsburg wrote:
How many flies
buzzed round you innocent of your
grime, while you cursed
the heavens of the
railroad and
your flower soul?
America
says “ The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz.” As in
Sunflower, nature is seen as innocent and full of life.
Comment:
This
seems like too much to come out of a song that has been criticized by
many for over 30 years, but somehow it all seems to come together for
me.
To pow-wow — it takes place "on the edge of the
desert:
To socializing — one grain of sand "is as good as
another"
To Smokey — " those who recite this Sutra and then try
to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada"
To Zeldin — William Blake’s quote describes enlightenment
as "To see a world in a grain of sand / And a heaven in a wild flower, / Hold
infinity in the palm of your hand / And eternity in an hour."
Move Content: A pentagram, a five-pointed star usually drawn with five straight strokes.
Links Claimed:
To Pow-wow – Pow-wow is a term that also refers to a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition of healing. You can read about it here. The Pennsylvania Dutch put five-pointed stars on their barns. These are known as Barnstars.
To sand – A sand dollar has a five-pointed star on its underside.
To Socialising – As we are seeing right here, HipBone games are great for socialising. There is a game board known as the Pentagram Board. It and the Mercedes Board are based on Peterson Graphs, which are drawn as pentagrams inside of pentagons.
"The words "atoms of dust" and "the great universes" are only words. The
idea that they imply is only an idea. The belief that we live here in
this existence, divided into various beings, passing food in and out of
ourselves, and casting off husks of bodies one after another with no
cessation and no definite or particular discrimination, is only an
idea.
The seat of our Immortal Intelligence can be seen in that beating
light between the eyes the Wisdom Eye of the ancients: we know what
we’re doing: we’re not disturbed: because we’re like the golden
eternity pretending at playing the magic cardgame and making believe
it’s real, it’s a big dream, a joyous ecstasy of words and ideas and
flesh, an ethereal flower unfolding a folding back, a movie, an
exuberant bunch of lines bounding emptiness, the womb of
Avalokitesvara, a vast secret silence, springtime in the Void, happy
young gods talking and drinking on a cloud.
Our 32,000 chillicosms bear all the marks of excellence. Blind milky
light fills our night; and the morning is crystal.
It links to 3 - Charles’ sand when Kerouac compares words to "atoms of
dust" This is what happens to our words here - grains of sand in the
great Web universe out there.
The Scripture also links to Gary Snyder’s Smokey Bear in link 9 , because it was Kerouac’s answer to Snyder’s suggestion he should write his own sutra. Both Snyder and Kerouac were part of the Beat Generation , celebrating non-conformity, spontaneous creativity, continuously challenging the limits of free expression, like the social media we see today.
will elaborate on it and update it later …must rush
Back…
To Gabriela’s socializing in position 8, when she quotes from a blog post "These are the early days at the beginning of the renaissance,"
because Kerouac and the Beat Generation socialized freely, informally and emphasized life in this world - just like the artists of the Rennaissance, they brought about the beginnings of a newand chaotic trend which questioned the mainstream Middle Age culture just like the use of these "disruptive" tools challenges the established educational establishment today.
To Zeldin in link 7 because by engaging in conversations and in games like we are doing now "we’re like the golden
eternity pretending at playing the magic cardgame and making believe
it’s real, it’s a big dream, a joyous ecstasy of words and ideas and
flesh, an ethereal flower unfolding a folding back, a movie, an
exuberant bunch of lines bounding emptiness".
Our passage on Earth is quick and we will disappear so let’s enjoy the pleasures of the world: exchange ideas, play, have fun and be as memorable, vibrant and generous as we can.
Great game - thanks all who participated for the input and Charles, the Magister Ludi and Nancy, the apprentice for organizing it.
I came here to see if I could complete the board.
The last move had started to obsess me. I always feel an urge to fill
emptiness. I found Bee’s link to Kerouac’s talk on everything being nothing,
the Nothing-Ever-Happened wonderful void. She filled the last void in the
board, though.
Just as Ewan was trying to do in his post (move 8), completing somebody else’s
reflexions, planning to complete the voids in his own reflexions.
I guess all this is because both Bee and Ewan have read the end of Kerouac’s
poem
65
This is the first teaching from the golden
eternity.
66
The second teaching from the golden eternity
is that there never was a first teaching from the golden eternity. So be sure.
Can this count as a collaboration to Bee’s move, driven by my obsession to fill
the void?
Ten thoughts can be dropped onto the board like pebbles in a pond, sending out ripples…
This is dedicated to the smielt session.
I have a quote from one of my all-time favourite children’s books ‘Just so stories’ by Rudyard Kipling, from the story ‘How the camel got his hump’.
Move title:
Pow-wow
I just realized that the first position is a tough one to occupy. Where do I belong? What can connect to me? Will the move be a ‘good’ beginning? I’ll pick number 2 on this empty board.
Move content:
This quote obviously connects to social media, but it also reflects the many places all of us are from, all communicating together -using one language together, but each with our own languages at home. Through social media I have become inspired to learn another language as well.
On the other hand, the story is about the world being "so new and all", which refers in this case to the digital world of possibilites we are exploring at the moment. We are working together as the animals did in the first days in this story.
On a side note, one could also say that those who choose to neglect these new tools as playing a role in education will at some point have missed the boat and will have the ‘humph’ poor camel also received from the Djinn for not showing any interest in the development of the new world.
No links to claim, except that as I write this I am listening to the free spirit in Keith Jarret’s beautiful music (thank you, Bee). Well, perhaps this could be a link to Bee’s Keith Jarret on first board. Learning to walk the unknown: To restrict learning means we restrict possibilities for living. Learning atrophies in the absence of mystery.
I love the move, Illya! I have lots of ideas floating around in my brain now; I am just looking for the right one to play here with you!
I’m so glad Illya started this game off around our topic here at SMiELT, the first game was wonderfully free, and this one can have focus and connection with the rest of the work here, so we get to see both styles of play.
I also think Illya’s is playing a mini HipBone Game right here in this move, with its various languages, its palaver and indaba and punchayet and
pow-wow, and with the focus on community / communication, and with its new world / fresh start — so I am going to give out another of those exceedingly rare little connectivity tokens here, that indicate linking the game to its context in a particularly rich way.
http://hipbonegames.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/metabd.thumbnail.gif
This move is dedicated to those of us who are creating our own personal learning networks as guided by our own interests and with the help of knowledgeable guides on the sides.
Move title:
King
Space 4
Move content:
This move is based on a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. and is connected to Illya’s Pow wow move.
The quote: "You are as good as anyone."
I found this quote in a beautiful children’s book called Martin’s Big Words (http://www.amazon.com/Martins-Big-Words-Martin-Luther/dp/0786807148
The book is written by Doreen Rappaport, a well-respected writer of historical fiction in the U.S. The illustrator is Bryan Collier. Bryan mixes paper images enhanced with his own painting to create stunning collages.
The connection to Illya is that my move also is inspired by a children’s book.
The quote is connected to my own experience with social media in the Smilet08 course. I have discovered that in the context of social media that I can participate and even contribute to discussions that are taking place all over the world. It was a scary proposition for me to connect my blog to others. It is downright frightening for me to be followed on Twitter by the likes of Clay Burell and Doug Johnson. Somehow, though, I have gained confidence. I feel comfortable with the tools and am nurturing the voice that I express through them.
I am inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr., who found a way to connect with people around the world without the same social media tools that we have available today. Mostly, I hope that he will inspire me to connect with the people I work with every day. The students, the teachers, the staff - all of whom are "as good as anyone" to connect to.
The art of connecting, whether it be through international, national or local venues, is the "social" part social media that I have really done a lot of thinking about in this course. I am as good as anyone when it comes to living and learning in this world.
Sarah Braxton
Move title:
8 - Socialising
Move Content:
This post by Ewan McIntosh was the very first article I read about the social web. I think his blog was black at that time.
"These are the early days at the beginning of the renaissance," I read.
I couldn’t help being hooked. Although I didn’t quite understand what
he was talking about I sensed this could be a real change for my
students’ approach to language, I couldn’t even imagine what the Social
Web would mean to me.
Link Claimed:
4 - Pow-Wow
Social Media certainly was "so new and all" a year ago. Have a look at
his last question, lots of changes since then and still lots of changes
to take place. Isn’t that fascinating?
Comment
This SMiELT Pow-wow is sooo inspiring.
Sarah, I’ll print your move, and stick it in my computer. Several copies, better; and stick them all around.
I’m working on the board…
I see now I didn’t claim my link to Sarah’s. sorry
Link claimed
4 - King
When I first read Ewan’s post, I felt everybody knew a lot and I
knew nothing.I thought I would never catch up; well this is what
happened.
Fortunately I soon discovered that all this wasn’t about the tools, it
was about the content. It was not about teaching, it was about learning.
Thanks for noticing that, Gabriela. I was so busy fixing up the board that I didn’t really pay attention to the moves and links!
Sarah, I love your link! I’m glad there are others out there that turn to children’s books for inspiration :-). I find your quote so powerful that I share Gabriella’s desire to copy and distribute it. Words to live by!
Oh well, I am going to play.
Move 4:
I play Smokey in position 9.
Move content:
I am thinking of Gary Snyder’s Smokey the Bear Sutra. This is a great, hilarious, radical, ecological poem, in which Gary Snyder — a pretty terrific poet anyway, who introduced Jack Kerouac to Zen among other things — prentends he’s the ancient and highly contemporary Buddha, Smokey, giving a sermon to all of us, ants and trees and mountains and all.
Very funny, very plainspoken, very pro-earth, you can and might want to read the whole thing at:
http://www.marigold.com/rt88/bear.html
Links claimed:
to "a pow-wow on the edge of the Desert" — the sermon is addressed from "this corner of the infinite void" to "to all the assembled elements and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings, the flying beings, and the sitting beings - even the grasses, to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from a seed, assembled there" — quite a pow wow.
to ML King and "You are as good as anyone" — Snyder’s poem is a great praise of all sorts of folks, "those who love the woods and rivers, Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children" — quite a bunch of different folks to be as good as.
and to "These are the early days at the beginning of the renaissance" because as Snyder claims,
those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada. Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick. Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature. Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts. Will always have ripened blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at. AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT".
Quite a Renaissance.
Charles, are you allowed to play King? I thought you couldn't play the areas in red.
btw- my son has a Smokey the Bear, so maybe I'll remember this some day when he is grown up with kids of his own to pass it on to. I'll certainly pass the story on as well!
Ah — no — the colors on the board are just decorative. What you can’t do is claim a link to a move that doesn’t have a line directy connecting it to your own move. So playing in 9, I can link to 2, 4, and 8 — in fact, I’m supposed to!
Thanks for asking, and giving me the chance to clarify — I’ll try to remember to make that clear to people in future, too.
So am I...:-)
Move 5:
I play Theodore Zeldin in position 7
Move content:
Theodore Zeldin is an English historian, philosopher, writer and also the President of the Oxford Muse Foundation. I have recently read his book An Intimate History of Humanity, which exposes human feelings, habits, emotions and perceptions of common people in many different civilisations across time .We see how the hopes and fears of the common man interact with each other. Some key themes surface: self-actualization versus comfort, freedom versus the need for companionship, the need for belonging to one's culture versus the desire to escape from its limitations. How people, through knowing and understanding each other move from relationships defined by power to those based on compassion, co-operation and friendship.
There are many wonderful quotes from that book and also from his other book Conversation, like for instance:
"Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards."
Links claimed:
the small link to Smokey the Bear - because in Gary Snyder's tale, Smokey is a new and paradoxical card which embodies the complex global world we live - the symbol brings together East and West, the Buddhist concept of non-duality (Wrathful but Calm, Austere but Comic).
However, I feel Smokeys discourse is totalitarian as he will only illuminate those who help him while those who hinder or slander him...HE WILL PUT THEM OUT, like the fire in the forest he protects. Although fire and diamond may be symbols for wisdom, enduring love, eternal flame, they are also connected to hate/genocide/burning at the stake. A diamond represents "purity" and the burning flames are used to purify the world, ethnic cleansing.
It is a very enlightening story and how well he managed to "spark" all these images.
Have a nice move to your new place , Charles and I expect a house-warming party invite once you are comfortable there. We could do with a hipbone party :-) Now, how would that look?
And the board now looks like this:
10 - Sunflower
Sunflower Sutra by Allen Ginsberg
Charles’s move immediately reminded me of this poem.
I’m not too keen on Ginsberg. However, I do enjoy reading and rereading this poem.
It is not the product of musing, but the outcome of a
situation. I’ve always sensed that there’s a meeting point between
poetry and drama. I cannot back this idea scientifically, but this poem
is just one proof of my intuition.
The setting, -not a welcoming one, really; the two characters; the
conflict -grime against purity.There’s even action "So I grabbed up the
skeleton thick sunflower and stuck it at my side like a scepter". And
an audience "and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack’s soul too, and
anyone who’ll listen". He finishes the scene with a monologue.
I particularly like these lines:
Claimed Links
9- Smokey
Well, both are Sutras; that’s obvious. Kerouac is present in the scene, that’s obvious, too.
An appropriate environment to chant Smokey the Bear’s war spell. Without war spells Grinsberg manages to vsjra-shovel the grime by bringing into surface his own memory of a sunflower. Does he WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT? His fans might think he does.
5-Theodore Zeldin
"Look at the Sunflower, he said"
"—I rushed up enchanted—it was my first sunflower,memories of
Blake—my visions—", and he goes on with memories from Harlem, where
we can assume he read Blake.
Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and
habits
"We’re not our skin of grime, we’re not our dread bleak dusty
imageless locomotive, we’re all beautiful golden sunflowers inside" When minds meet, they don’t just exchange facts: they transform
them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in
new trains of thought.
Kerouac, in turn, refers to this situation and paraphrases Ginsberg’s
poem to comfort his friend Stella Sampas in a letter -old
conversational medium. He creates new cards. (Kerouac: Selected Letters (1940-1956) edited by Ann Charters; Viking, Penguin Books, 1995; page 528
Comment
Here you can listen to the poem.
Blake’s Sunflower is here.
Bee’s move is seven, not five as I wrote.
And now it looks like this:
I guess Charles will have to consider a special token for the brave one to take move 6!
Agree with you, Gabriela. Number 6 is a really though one - it should link to your Sunflower, King, Smokey and Pow-wow. Let’s see who will face the challenge!
Haaa.
Whooooo indeed?
Move: America in #6
Move Content: America’s song “A Horse With No Name”
The song’s meaning seems to have been hotly debated over the years. Is it about drugs? Is it, as the songwriter said, a nostalgic look back at time spent in the desert? The song, while not great music probably, is one I remember well from 1972. The chorus goes like this:
I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain
La, la
Links claimed:
To pow-wow in 1 - This song has been floating around in my brain ever since Illya posted “Pow-wow”. The connection to the desert is obvious. Kipling’s Pow-wow is on the edge of the desert, where there are people, as opposed to actually in the desert where the song tells us there are no people to cause us any trouble.
To King in 4 – In his I Have a Dream speech, King said
One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. …
America said
The ocean is a desert with its life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love
The ocean of prosperity that King talked about is a mask that hides the true situation in this country from the eyes of most people. It is a kind of desert. And the African American who is an exile in his own land can give testimony to the fact that there is little love to be found in the cities, little compassion for people.
To Smokey in 9– The poem says “Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a civilization that claims to save but often destroys…” Another example of man’s lack of humanity, as cited above.
To Sunflower in 10 – Ginsburg wrote:
railroad and your flower soul?
America says “ The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz.” As in Sunflower, nature is seen as innocent and full of life.
Comment:
This seems like too much to come out of a song that has been criticized by many for over 30 years, but somehow it all seems to come together for me.
And the board:
Beauty, Nancy. It surely does come together well to me . Fitted perfectly and I just love this coming together of different ideas and memories.
Thanks, Bee! The beauty of these games is allowing us to see the way such seemingly unrelated ideas or images are really related after all!
Move Title:
Move content:
Links claimed:
Comments:
Move: Pentagram in position 1
Move Content: A pentagram, a five-pointed star usually drawn with five straight strokes.
Links Claimed:
To Pow-wow – Pow-wow is a term that also refers to a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition of healing. You can read about it here. The Pennsylvania Dutch put five-pointed stars on their barns. These are known as Barnstars.
To sand – A sand dollar has a five-pointed star on its underside.
To Socialising – As we are seeing right here, HipBone games are great for socialising. There is a game board known as the Pentagram Board. It and the Mercedes Board are based on Peterson Graphs, which are drawn as pentagrams inside of pentagons.
And here is the board. Who will make the last move?
Claiming 5 with this quote from Jack Kerouac’s The Scripture of the Golden Eternity
"The words "atoms of dust" and "the great universes" are only words. The
idea that they imply is only an idea. The belief that we live here in
this existence, divided into various beings, passing food in and out of
ourselves, and casting off husks of bodies one after another with no
cessation and no definite or particular discrimination, is only an
idea.
The seat of our Immortal Intelligence can be seen in that beating
light between the eyes the Wisdom Eye of the ancients: we know what
we’re doing: we’re not disturbed: because we’re like the golden
eternity pretending at playing the magic cardgame and making believe
it’s real, it’s a big dream, a joyous ecstasy of words and ideas and
flesh, an ethereal flower unfolding a folding back, a movie, an
exuberant bunch of lines bounding emptiness, the womb of
Avalokitesvara, a vast secret silence, springtime in the Void, happy
young gods talking and drinking on a cloud.
Our 32,000 chillicosms bear all the marks of excellence. Blind milky
light fills our night; and the morning is crystal.
It links to 3 - Charles’ sand when Kerouac compares words to "atoms of
dust" This is what happens to our words here - grains of sand in the
great Web universe out there.
The Scripture also links to Gary Snyder’s Smokey Bear in link 9 , because it was Kerouac’s answer to Snyder’s suggestion he should write his own sutra. Both Snyder and Kerouac were part of the Beat Generation , celebrating non-conformity, spontaneous creativity, continuously challenging the limits of free expression, like the social media we see today.
will elaborate on it and update it later …must rush
Back…
To Gabriela’s socializing in position 8, when she quotes from a blog post "These are the early days at the beginning of the renaissance,"
because Kerouac and the Beat Generation socialized freely, informally and emphasized life in this world - just like the artists of the Rennaissance, they brought about the beginnings of a newand chaotic trend which questioned the mainstream Middle Age culture just like the use of these "disruptive" tools challenges the established educational establishment today.
To Zeldin in link 7 because by engaging in conversations and in games like we are doing now "we’re like the golden
eternity pretending at playing the magic cardgame and making believe
it’s real, it’s a big dream, a joyous ecstasy of words and ideas and
flesh, an ethereal flower unfolding a folding back, a movie, an
exuberant bunch of lines bounding emptiness".
Our passage on Earth is quick and we will disappear so let’s enjoy the pleasures of the world: exchange ideas, play, have fun and be as memorable, vibrant and generous as we can.
Great game - thanks all who participated for the input and Charles, the Magister Ludi and Nancy, the apprentice for organizing it.
I came here to see if I could complete the board.
The last move had started to obsess me. I always feel an urge to fill
emptiness. I found Bee’s link to Kerouac’s talk on everything being nothing,
the Nothing-Ever-Happened wonderful void. She filled the last void in the
board, though.
Just as Ewan was trying to do in his post (move 8), completing somebody else’s
reflexions, planning to complete the voids in his own reflexions.
I guess all this is because both Bee and Ewan have read the end of Kerouac’s
poem
65
This is the first teaching from the golden
eternity.
66
The second teaching from the golden eternity
is that there never was a first teaching from the golden eternity. So be sure.
Can this count as a collaboration to Bee’s move, driven by my obsession to fill
the void?
Sorry,but I meant reflections, not "reflexions".
I was just writing "reflexionar" in Spanish, and feared I had made a mistake here. And I had.
Too much language shifting.
Wonderful, delightful, incredibly apt.
I bow to you all, and thank you.
Thank YOU, Charles. I had never lived this kind of experience online.
Hope to meet you and your games again.
May I join in the thanks to you Charles.
I had a great time pondering, reflecting and searching for connections.
And our final board looks like this:
Thank you to one and all for your participation in these games. A special thanks to Charles for sharing his expertise and his enthusiasm with us.