This blog is a commemoration of
the daily writing experiment I did ten years ago. I for the past 200 days I have been
revisiting each day of writing. However,
in the spirit of the original experiment, I have not followed any outline, or
pre-articulated set of questions, and have allowed only the very ontology of
the relationship between Being and Learning take hold of me and move me. The whole experiment is one of presuming and
anticipating the always present possibility of the event of appropriation, and
writing under the presumption that I am already caught within the flow of
Being’s becoming. There is no deep
mystery revealed by this premise, but only the enactment of a writing that is
mostly prompted from the immediate circumstances of my experience, which can be
the exact content of the daily meditation being revisited – as has been the
case with the recitation of the Zarathustra legend I have been excerpting these
past few days – or the latest material I am studying – as was the case with the
Thoreau I was immersed in a month ago – or even an event, such as the annual
PES conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Today I will continue with the recitation of the Zarathustra legend,
because, as I wrote in my commentary yesterday, it represents the most
innovative writing from the experiment that has never been published! Indeed, the two plus weeks of writing that
happened in late August and early September of 2004 represent that last of the
material that was not included in Being
and Learning. Almost three months
of writing!
The full disclosure on this issue
is that I had completely forgotten that this large amount of material was not
included in Being and Learning. When I discovered the gap in June, I wasn’t
surprised, because a lot of the meditations were a bit too improvisational, or
what today is called random. ‘Random’ is
the younger generation’s pejorative for a messy or incoherent non-synchronous
associational thinking. It does not
denote synchronicity, nor improvisation, nor even the most avant garde free
jazz, although some of that might feel so alienating to the ear that it would
qualify for the derisive category of ‘random’.
Much of the material I wrote between June-August 2004 is ‘random’, and
so it didn’t make it into Being and Learning. But, as I’ve written in some of the most
self-critical moments of these commentaries, the ‘randomness’ of meditations is
certainly not the only ground for exclusion.
Redundant repetition is another, and had I been brutally honest to
myself about editing the project’s original material, I would have probably
organized it in an entirely different manner, or kept the current chapter
structure, but greatly reduced the material, so that the book would have been
published, perhaps, in less than 200 pages as opposed to the almost 400 pages
it is currently! But I suppose I will
continue to have very mixed feelings about the choice I made with the editorial
process, because the exclusion of the Zarathustra legend, and the inclusion of
material that often reads a repetition, strikes me as perhaps the result of the
random logic and not the improvisational one!
All this was intended as a prelude
to mentioning that today, September 3rd, is the 60th
anniversary of one of the most important pieces of US federal law: The
Wilderness Act, and with that 9.1. million acres of National Forest received
Wilderness designation. Of that forest,
the Great Gulf in the White Mountains of New Hampshire was included in that
law. The Appalachian Mountain Club’s Marc Chalufour wrote an excellent piece on
the Great Gulf and the Wilderness Act "50 Years in the Wild: Looking Back at the Wilderness Act," AMC's Online Newsletter .
For obvious reasons, that can be
understood by reading the last three months of this blog, I am paying homage to
the anniversary of the Wilderness Act.
And my experiences in the wilderness, some of them in the White
Mountains, inspired me to conjure up the Zarathustra legend. But no better expression of that inspiration
is found than in the writing that happened ten years ago yesterday when I
stepped out of the narrative and wrote about the forest Zarathustra must
traverse before ascending to his mountain cave, and the river, Gracia, that ‘protects’ the forest’s
border. And, as I wrote yesterday, while
the writing certainly qualifies as experimental, it is by no means ‘random,’
and, on the contrary, the legend, especially the excerpt from 9/2/04, is a
condensed expression of much of the work on meditative thinking that had been
written in the previous months; what’s more, in keeping with the poetic
phenomenological form of the writing, the legend offers symbolic representation
of my experiences, so that it is not ‘pure imaginative speculative,’ or what
might be dismissed as ‘fantasy’ writing.
In fact much of it can be traced to my experiences of camping, hiking,
and sailing during the summer of 2004.
On that note…back to the legend!
“Don Quixote remained open to all
the tales of the river, but regarded the
stewards of the forest with reverence, for their kindness and compassion was unmatched,
and their songs intoxicating. He could
almost hear the chanting as he saw the trees rising up in the nearing
distance. Zarathustra had long since
lost sight of Quixote and Sancho. After
a few hours he was relieved to find along the way a small packet of dried fig,
apples, pecan and almonds. He rested
only a moment, and proceeded onward, munching as he went along. His was a steady, forward moving march, but
with legs weak from so much sitting and sleeping, he was in no shape to keep
pace with the tireless horse and donkey.
‘Those are no beasts of burden,’ he thought, ‘ but partners,
collaborators, confidants.’ He had
entrusted himself to them, for it was the hoof-prints of these friends that
Zarathustra followed, and which lead him, finally, to the shady grove at the
edge of the forest where Sancho was again tending to the small fire of
mesquite. ‘So, you have arrived at last, brother!’ Sancho exclaimed, and embraced Zarathustra
who was stunned by this exuberant greeting.
‘I see you did not overstep the bag of goodies I left along the way for
you. I also see you have kept your boda
quite full. Did you drink at all, dear
friend?’
“Zarathustra hardly drank from the
boda, and at that moment realized he still had the remains of the leaf and
chunk tucked between his cheek and gum.
His reply to Sancho was removing these remnants, which he held proudly
in the air, like a child who has landed their first catch. At the sight of this brown mush Sancho reeled
back and feel over in a fit of laughter. Caught in the moment of elation,
Zarathustra exhaled and took a long swig from the boda. Seeing this, Sancho held out his hand, and
the two soon drained the entire sack of wine, and set about cutting cheese, sausage,
and frying the two eggs that remained in Sancho’s saddlebag. ‘These we must enjoy with much gratitude, my
friend, for they have managed to survive days of bumps and thumps.’
“The explosion of oil and yoke
covered the sound of Don Quixote thrashing about in the brush he had become
caught in when he went off to relieve himself.
Convinced his predicament was the work of his nemesis Freston the great
enchanter, Quixote pulled sword from sheath and reduced the brush to half its
size with four great hacks.
‘Not bad, for one who uses so large
a pruner. A sloppy lopper you are not,
my brother,’ said the caretaker who had been watching Quixote from a distance
and approached as soon as he saw the thin figure’s cape become entangled in the
holly.
‘Brother, you know me as a person
of freedom who does not abide in this forest as a caretaker, but who takes care
to seek adventure while remaining steadfast in devotion to the peace built in
fellowship with kindred spirits. If my
slashed have proven to be a benefit to this prickly fellow, then my freedom has
been restorative by default.’ The
caretaker smiled and nodded in agreement. ‘Here, restore yourself with some
cool drink I have just now pulled from the waters of Gracia. I see there the company you travel with are
waving for you to join them.’ After a
long revitalizing swig, Quixote put his hand on the shoulder of the caretaker,
saying, ‘Come, join us for our mid-day meal.
Let us respond to your welcome, kind stranger, good caretaker, brother.”
[09/03/04, with some minor edits on this day!]
3.0 (Tuesday, Portland, ME) - I had written this yesterday, but forgot to post it. The writing, a proposal for the Phenomenology and Existentialism SIG at PES, has little to do with what I wrote above (a commemoration of the Wilderness Act, and the fragments from the legend of Quixote and Zarathustra). Nevertheless, in the spirit of posting whatever new writing was completed, here is the proposal, which, for the record, I'm not thrilled with. I definitely have some lingering anxiety about PES, and have lots of mixed feelings about attending/participating. On the one hand I feel like I should move on to the writing of fiction, become active in the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, take a fiction workshop, etc., and move beyond the academic societies. But on the other hand I still want to be part of those communities. I've decided to let fate and the movement of the Holy Spirit lead the way. If the proposal is accepted, I'll attend. If it's not, I'll move on once and for all. In the meantime, here is the proposal I'll finish editing today and submit:
ReplyDelete3.0b - “Teaching Catastrophe: Learning from and Reproducing Benjamin’s Radio Pedagogy”
ReplyDeleteBetween 1929-1933, Walter Benjamin’s voice was broadcast into the homes of Germans on the airwaves of Radio Frankfurt and Berlin could be received. Benjamin’s radio pedagogy provides a model of an experimental media education that could be replicated today as we grapple with teaching the catastrophe of climate change. Benjamin wrote and delivered upwards of 90 radio broadcasts for children. Tyson Lewis describes the phenomenological force of those broadcasts: “Sound has the ability to produce a shock related to the happening of events, reviving them by returning them to consciousness. Sound can call children into the past (as in echo) and can thrust them into the ‘invisible stranger’ of the future.” (Lewis, 2020, 68) This presentation will explore Benjamin’s radio pedagogy as a way enabling children to venture to the past and to places far away and in the process help them negotiate the unexpected calamities they experience in their own world, and thereby welcome the ‘invisible stranger.’
Benjamin’s radio pedagogy is a part of his phenomenology of fragments and his unique methodology of collecting. (Benjamin, 1968) Radio provided him with a medium to share his collection of stories. One of the most compelling tales, which will be the focus of this presentation, is “The Mississippi Flood of 1927.” (Benjamin, 2014) It is a story of existential struggle and survival, as well as an ominous forecast of still more catastrophic events to come at home and abroad. Delivered in March 1932 on Radio Berlin, the broadcast was an allegory of dictatorship exploring the struggle between the hubris of state officials versus the local knowledge of farmers. And it is also an intersectional story that describes how the dictatorship that unleashed the fury of the river also reopened the floodgates of racial oppression and violence. Indeed, Benjamin’s story concludes with a promise to return to the Mississippi, “to its bank during times when the river flowed peacefully in its bed, but there was little peace to be found on its shores. For a long time now, I’ve planned to tell you the story of America’s greatest and most dangerous secret society…the Ku Klux Klan. Once again, we’ll find ourselves on the banks of the Mississippi but this time facing the raging elements of human cruelty and violence…And so stay tuned for the Ku Klux Klan and Judge Lynch and the other unsavory characters that have populated the human wilderness of the Mississippi, and still populate it today.” (Benjamin, 2014, 180)
3.0c - What can we learn from listening to Benjamin’s radio pedagogy? By telling the stories of catastrophic events Benjamin was not only captivating his young listeners but conveying to them how a catastrophe is in fact a sudden overturning of the taken for granted order of everyday life. While this certainly had the effect of frightening some children, his manner of telling the stories was intended to calmly remind them that a catastrophe is a crisis, a moment in time that provides an opportunity for existential change, a sudden turn of events, a possible revolution in the order of things and in the ways we relate to one another and our world. In this sense Benjamin was enacting on the radio a version of Brecht’s estrangement effect, a performative strategy Benjamin admired.
ReplyDeleteThis presentation will offer a concise review of the current state of mass/social media pedagogy, including projects being made by philosophers of education, indicating both the promising and the discouraging examples being produced. And the presentation will conclude by suggesting there is a chance to replicate Benjamin’s experiment over the radio waves, specifically through noncommercial community and college radio stations.