Eblow part 2: Christ as a teacher

I was reading my The Best of Charles Spurgeon today and the passage was this:

As Jesus sat at the table in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, 'Why does your Teacher eat with the tax collectors and sinners?' When Jesus heard that, He said to them, 'Those who are well have no need for a physician, but those who are sick ... For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.' Matthew 9:10-13

Good, encouraging stuff.

So what can we learn from this? What can we learn about how teachers interact with their students?

I'm not one for sweeping statements, so more forts later.

Amanda Palmer: Readers of Her Blog and the News

"Dude, WE WENT TO THE MOON. Seriously, we can pretty much do anything, once we stop talking ourselves out of it."

John C Welsh, from Amanda Palmer's blog

Finally ...

I'll tell you about it. First thing that happened was I read Peter Dray's blog (Scribblings from My Desk). He was commenting on Ed Clowney's The Message of 1 Peter: The Way of the Cross -- the quote was basically saying how we need to be both 'Bible people' and 'experience people'. "Interesting," I thought.

And then it actually happened. I was in church and PJ was preaching on Acts 4: 23-31 -- a passage which I love anyway as it reminds me fondly of Ridge Lane prayer meetings.

It is not just a case of "looking for God". God is looking for us all, waiting with arms wide open. He has made himself known in the Bible, in the presence of Jesus and through experiencing the Holy Spirit, as Peter and Ed point out.

Today was a combo of the two: the word and the experience of God saying "Yep. This is me."

Just what I needed. It has taken me a long time to get here though. Recognising who God is who he says he is in the Bible, who Jesus says he is, and the Spirit (see "worshipping in spirit and truth", John 4). I had to be exposed to God, He had to show me who he was over days, months, years.

So there we go. One day, a lot to think about.

Cheers.

Teacher Equations #1

Richmond (Rich what?) + Shaft - Afro = Coach Carter

Elbow on Contrary Teachers

1.) Students are our allies we instruct and care. In doing this we create a learning community. This can often be chaotic / messy (see 'Bamboozed' p.85) but not necessarily unhelpful.

2.) 'Our commitment to knowledge and society asks us to be guardians or bouncers: we must discriminate, evaluate, test, grade, certify. ' (p.143)

Some images:

p.147

'I think of the medieval doctrine of poetry that likens it to a nut with a tough husk protecting a sweet kernel. The function of the poem is not to disclose but rather to conceal the kernel for many, the unworthy, and to disclose it only to the few worthy (D. W. Robertson, 61 ff.).'

'Late Henry James may be pearls, but when students yawn, that doesn't make them swine.'

p.148

'In Piaget's terms, learning involves both assimilation and accommodation.'

Question: in this assimilation, who must bend and deform so that learning can take place?

Look at Socrates and Christ as archetypal good teachers - archetypal in being so paradoxical. They are extreme on the one hand in their impulse to share with everyone and to support all learners, in their sense that everyone can take and get what they are offering; but they are extreme on the other hand in their fierce high standards for what will past muster ... I am struck with how much they relied on irony, parable, myth, and other forms of subtle utterance that hide while they communicate. These two teachers were willing in some respects to bend and disfigure and in the eyes of many to profane what they taught, yet on the other hand they were equally extreme in their insistance that learners bend or transform themselves in order to become fit receptacles.

It is as though Christ, by stressing the extreme of sharing and being an ally - saying "suffer the little children to come to me" and praising the widow with her mite - could be more extreme in his sterness: ... 'I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand'... Christ embeds the two themes of giving away and guarding - commitment to "students" and to "subject matter" ...

I have yet to comment on this.

The reading list so far...

A brilliant book. Concise chapters containing tasty chunks of great novels such as
Hardy, Dickens,
Austen, Amis,
Fitzgerald, Woolf,
Eliot, James
and novel conventions for the begining to the end via topics such as suspense, showing not telling, chapters, lists, monologues, the unreliable narrator. Whether you are blagging a topic amongst your literary friends or teaching your year 10s, this book is greatness.

More Elbow. A collection of essays. One article I particularly empathised with was called 'Pedagogy of the Bamboozled' and the essay from which the book gets its title promises to be a good read.

This is all about free writing - whether Elbow is comparing the exercises to growing (a developmental process -- I like organic imagery) or cooking (interacting with people, ideas, metaphors and symbols) as a writer of creative works and academic essays (there is a great personal testimony of Elbow's essay writing method as an 'autobiographical digression') I know what he is talking about. The actual exercises might be sophisticated for some low ability writers, but there are some experiments which I would love to try.

Return of the Native: 'Harnessing the Power of Technology' in Pictures

Finishing off John and Wheeler's 'The Digital Classroom: Harnessing the Power of Technology' with some illustrations.

Image #0:

p.126

Great comparisons between 'digital immigrants' and 'digital natives'. See also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c05E6kyHu8E

Image #1 Chariot Racer:
p.124 - 'harnessing power'. We hope that this title generates an evocative image of a team of horses drawing a carriage, with each animal working with the carriage driver, travelling

towards a common goal or destination ... We also intended that it should convey a sense of momentum of change and to encapsulate the debate about whether education is being driven by, or is it driving, technology towards educational transformation.

We could extend the metaphor further and ask what extent the carriage driver is in control and what skills he or she requires, or whether he or she is merely 'holding the reins'.

p.129 - None of use can predict what the world will be like in the future ... We ... can be certain that those who learn how to harness technology effectively will be best prepared to meet its challenges.


Image #2 The Swamp:

p.125

... the interplay that exists between learners, teachers, technology and the curriculum ... is not only complex and with many layers, it also play out in what Schon (1986) calls the 'swamp' - the often murky and messy scenarios of everyday teaching and learning, in which little can be quantified and where much is unpredictable.




Image #3: Digital Literacy

p. 127
Digital literacy as 'new literacy' or 'second orality' (Ong, 1982). See also the work of Ferris (not Bueller) and (not Van) Wilder (2006).


P.S. I REALLY like the above image. For more of the same see: wordandimage.wordpress.com/category/made-by-me/

Image 4: Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia-man

p.128

'Image a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we are doing.'

Bubbles has retired.

Bubbles has retired.
Michael moonwalks in limbo.
Cash tills keep PINGING!

Bathing apes decide
to set sail away from snow.
Pirates spring hotly.

Going postal, chimps
GOBBLE up correspondance,
peeling envelopes...

Who hung the baboon? -
Not us, say the BBC,
knotting lianas.

Gibbons, marmosets,
gorillas, chimps, orangutans ...
question baboons.

Autumn sets in hard.
The muddy piggy sneezes.
The chimp avoids snouts.

All bananas gone.
Stuffed into cheetah's fat face.
Raid the town larders.

The balloon CRASHES! -
a leaf sticks to the monkey.
A gorilla moans.

These are all examples of Illustrated Ape Daily Haiku Facebook Challenge.
Find more on Facebook. Search for 'Illustrated Ape'.

People Harry Knows

Hey all,

Just a quick note; my esteemed art-pal Harry Hasson has started a sister blog which hath sprung from the loins of his design based scribblings ... Design at Harrys.

Thoroughly worth a look, People I Know exposes many creative types that this home-boy has 'rubbed shoulders' with - I predict a featurette of Hamford in the near future!

Good to see more creative bods being passed around the internet like pokemon cards or something much cooler.

All power to the engines,

Steve

Blog 1: http://peopleharryknows.blogspot.com

Blog 2: http://www.designatharrys.com/blog/

First thoughts on the digital classroom

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who would wish to read one."

Never judge a book by its cover. Digital Classroom is suprisingly good. In the introduction alone contains some great quotes ("all technological innovation is a Faustian bargain" POSTMAN, 1994) and even throws some 'ology (but which one?..) in there - did you know that 'techno' derives from the greek for art or skill?

Finally, anything that starts a paragraph with: "Imagine a party of time travellers, among them a group of surgeons and a group of school teachers..." it can only be good, right?

water and the golden arm

"A man is like a river... forever changing and flowing, broad, clear, cold, muddy or warm - and everyone embodies all the qualities there are."
George Watson

***

I am listening to anything from The Company with the Golden Arm. It is all good.

http://www.myspace.com/thecompanywiththegoldenarm

voice

"We know that tomorrow will not be like today. That is one of the few certainties of the present period."

My own aim is simple enough. I would like a future for my children in which they can lead productive lives, in a society which is positively engaged with the challenges of its time, and in which despair is, at least, balanced by hope, difficulty by pleasure. I happen to believe that the possibilities of communication are an essential foundation for that. ... I think that the meaning-making practises of the young humans which I have observed are a good starting point for that rethinking...

Gunther Kress, Before Writing

I love kids drawings. They are great: free expressions that are rich in thought and feeling on the page. Perhaps we need to look at how "the kids of today" are making meaning; whether this is blogs, graffitti, LOLcats, I don't know. Once we deconstruct these literacies, we finally have something to work from which everyone can relate to.

Kress addresses a couple of things that were / are "challenges of the time" like globalisation, economy, the media, cultural and political developments and there is a lot of stuff that we still have to deal with ...

There is a load more great stuff here. It is a very inspirational text, written with intelligence and character. I love the last sentence.

Much love to all humans

Steve

chatrooms of the apocalypse

From the 'Gunmen of the Apocalypse' episode of Red Dwarf.

"Cyberspace has been likened to a modern-day Lord of the Flies and the Wild West of modern times." Donna Kernaghan, T.E.S.

Brilliant.

These are no doubt loaded images. As cheesy as this sounds I do argee with this statement.

There is the potential on-line to create your own society away from adults, teachers and law-guardians ... but as we all know, it is only a matter of time before there is a paradise lost-style fall from grace. Or the bandits show up. Or the food runs out. Something bad happens. Then it is up to the kids / the sheriff's brother / a mysterious stranger with a troubled past to sort it out for themselves.

That is how the adventures happen: people grow / fight / learn / get knocked down, get up again.

That is how the West is won. Right?

Forts on Teaching

I was just going to write 'WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONCIBILITY' and leave it at that.

This is true. THEN I got thinking about how learning to teach is like discovering and developing a superpower. It comes in accidental spurts, sometimes it gets messy and sometimes it is embarrassing: you always have to get over your ego and (thank God) every day is a new day.

Sometimes people get hurt

but hopefully you will save someone one day.

I'm always learning: working on my weaknesses and toning my strengths.

I'll get there; I just hope I don't have to fight too many big bosses on the way.

P.S. Just started a new prayer triplet which makes me very happy.

Freeze! Vegan Police!!

Hey all!

Have you heard of the Vegan Police?
You don't see or hear much about them.
If you break Vegan Law* they'll be onto you like SNAP.
What an interesting concept -- I love it!

Ok, I'm not a vegan but I do respect someone who thinks about what they are eating.
A bit like those celebs in the Morrisons advert.

I just like to be inclusive.

Much love,

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganism
http://www.vegansociety.com/home.php

Big Girls Don't Cry

I'm watching the million dollar movie. Some cheesy John Payne western. He hauls off and smacks Rhonda Fleming across the mouth and says, 'What do you think of that?' She looks up at him defiant, proud, eyes glistening - and she says, 'Big girls don't cry.' ...

(Bob Gaudio, taken from Jersey Boys)

The Film was Tennessee's Partner (1955) starring cowboy US President Ronald Reagan would-you-believe-it. So there we have it, the creation of possibly my favourite Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons song. The chorus is dang-good, it kinda has a ska flavour to it - definitely a black influence - really feel good music. However, the real punch (literally) comes from this darker subject matter that the idea sprung from; that incidence of domestic abuse and female heroism, a comment I'm sure on the partiarchy of the real west ... and the 1950s ideology in general ... maybe ... But for me the concept of taking an idea from the TV and shaping it to craft a seperate piece of art in it's own right is a phemoninon that revelutionised my own creative thinking, and it's nice to see that they were also doing it back in the day and produce some really sweet material.

For your information, Rhonda Fleming is the ginger (see below).

What is Jersey Boys?: http://www.jerseyboyslondon.com/

What does 'Big Girls Don't Cry' sound like?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVBvy2cc0Io

Tennessee's Partner: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZifDG9V00E

Blogs really can change your world

Hey all!

So I was checking out Ham's new website and there is a link to a real and true magazine article telling the story he got to work on The Mr. Men Show in mutha-flipping LA:
http://www.samdransfield.co.uk/news.html

So it seems that the cheeses in charge got hold of the blog in question (http://hamuelo.blogspot.com/2008/05/id-like-piece-of-meat_22.html), saw Ham's arch-intelligent critiques, recognised his passion for animation and asked him if he wanted to work on the project!

Think about that for a second: it shows the power that the humble blog has to project the writer into the wider world of inter-web and beyond! Immence!

I wonder where that leaves me and my blog, which is essentially half-formed blabbing with lots of colours and pictures, maybe a little bit of passion every now and then.

Think-think about it.

Much love

Nut-log #1

I'm thinking of changing my blog to 'Nut-log'. Good eh?

***

It is interesting to me that 2 of the blogs I've been following have commented on conferences.

Simon has been describing his experience of US security: http://merrettinnewyork.blogspot.com/

Whist The Space Hijackers have been commenting on the spate of police brutality in responce to the G20 confrences in America: http://www.spacehijackers.org/blog/2009/09/usa_g20_arrests.html

To put in my two pennies worth, Cat, Kit and myself witnessed masses of protesters along Brighton seafront last weekend. All the hoo-ha was to catch the attention of the suits attending the HUGE Labour Party Confrence at the Brighton Centre.

He were having a barbeque on the beach and the ravings of the megaphoned mob mixed with The Police cover band playing at the beach-bar down a small way down the road.

ANYWAY, I thought that I would address the issue of police/protester violence in a piece I like to call

Why Can't We Be Friends?

Example 1:

Example 2

The moral of the story is there whatever happens, there is always a dude with a camera.

ALSO

Derren Brown sounds like a girl,

Peas out, y'all.

re: 'Modern Expression', BIG ISSUE article

Recent BIG ISSUE article on the subject of the state of modern art at the 100 year anniversity of Modernism. The two most interesting collectives shared a desire to puncture the pointless irony, blah blah and celebrity culture of postmodern art, replacing this with passion and energy.

Savage Messiah Fanzine



Check out the website:

http://savagemessiahzine.com/

The universal and ineluctable consequence of this crusade to secure the city is the destruction of accessible public space. The contemporary opprobrium attached to the term ‘street person’ is itself a harrowing index of the devaluation of public spaces.
To reduce contact with untouchables, urban redevelopment has converted once vital pedestrian streets into traffic sewers and transformed public parks into temporary receptacles for the homeless and wretched.
The American city, as many critics have recognised, is being systematically turned inside out- or rather outside in. The valorized spaces of the new megastructures and supermalls are concentrated in the centre, street frontage is denuded, public activity is sorted into strictly functional compartments, and circulation is internalized in corridors under the gaze of private police.
Mike Davis City of Quartz

Pil and Galia Kollectiv

Our artwork is primarily film, video and performance based, though we also make collages and sculptures / installations related to our films. It explores utopian discourses of the twentieth century and the way they operate in the context of a changing landscape of creative work and instrumentalised leisure. We are interested in the role of politics and commerce in relation to the paradigms of modernism and the avant garde. We often use choreographed movement and ritual as both an aesthetic and a thematic dimension. Reading dada and the Bauhaus backwards through punk and new wave to rescue the humour and critical vitality that have been subsumed by the canonisation and commodification of modernism, we find new uses for the failed utopias of the past.

http://www.kollectiv.co.uk/

THE BIG ISSUE website: www.bigissue.co.uk/

Finally -- The Room!

I should have blogged about The Room ages ago, but I've descided to do it now as t'other day when the lads and I went to The Barbican's 'The Bad Film Club' to see Wiseau et al. on the big screen.

The night was brilliant. We walked down to the lowest floor (-2), to be greeted by a giant poster of Tommy, the movie poster [see above] that got the world's love affair with The Room started in a lot of ways.

Sam was dressed as Denny, the resident child-pervert, complete with wig. Tom was dressed in a tracksuit, wife-beater and beanie as 'Chris R.', a drug dealer who makes a fleeting, pretty much non-sensical appearance. Lewis had a pair of underwear in his pocket in homage to the famous "me underwears" scene.

We looked around at the other giant nerds, some who frequent the bad movie night, some like us who were first timers drawn there by the chance to see THE ROOM!!1! Some famous people that were there were Peter Serafinowicz, Graham Linehan and Robert Popper. They were kind of comparing the film. This means making witty comments and observations whilst the film is running. Some were funny and inspired and these guys cleary love the film, but I'm pretty sure that greg and sam were just as if not more humorous.

On the whole, if you enjoy making foonny comments about the films you watch with friends, The Room is a pretty safe bet for a great night.

Def check out bad film club: http://www.barbican.org.uk/film/series.asp?id=525

The Room: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Room_(film)

Hooray for the kids! #3: Art and design

Harry Hasson

Famous for having his name spelt wrongly in a beat-box video I made one time, Harry Hasson is a designer, some might say. Similarly to Ham, I'm on the same page as this guy - his work is joyful, fun and generally inspired (see ratchet furniture, above).

Check out his website:http://www.designatharrys.com/hasson%20projects.html

I also follow his blog 'things harry likes'. Check it out. It is good. ;)

Draw the Line

This is what orignially inspired me to write this series of posts.
There are some great things being done by my friends. It gives me great joy to brag about them.

Lancaster University graduates exhibition 2009. It would be GREAT to follow these guys and see where they go in the next couple of years.

Check out the only review I could find and the mentioned artists. Hopefully they will have websites.

http://thelunecyreview.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/draw-the-line-09-lancaster-university/

Zanny Mellor

The most commerically successful of the moment, Zanny HAS A TROPHEE! She came thrid in a Llyods TSB competiton -- and check out how good her work is! Illustration has always been my bag, and I love the mellowness and flow evidence in her work. Plus it's nice to see people doing what they love, doing it well and hopefully making a few beans on the side.

Zanny's website: www.zannymellor.com/

Anyone in Bristol? Want to see zanny's work in a proper gallery and everything!: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=129409054671

Hooray for the kids! #2: Literature

El Gruer

Break-dancing, poetry slammer.

This is the best I could do, G -->

I am an avid fan of El's work. As a contemporary, she encouraged me to write better and as she moves on to performance poetry she continues to inspire me to be creative. Saw her first professional gig, accompanied by beat-boxer Harry, at Greenbelt.

Humorous, concious, touching and personable poetry.

Atm she is working with the kids in Ireland. I bet they won't know what hit 'em. THAT'S ONE FOR LITERATURE!!!

Website: http://elgruer.com/

Hooray for the kids! #1: Music

People I know that are goings to be famous.

Jo Gillot

For The Lunecy Review via Jo's MySpace:

... odd lapses into Kate Nash-isms before her voice swoops and soars again like a more robust Joanna Newsom and the strength of her lyrics becomes more than just clever clever word play.

Beautiful, soulful and playful accoustic ditties. I hearts it.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/jogillot

L.Kay

The busiest man I know. A champion of hearty gospel music. A great player, musician, man and a wonderful and encouraging disciple and brother.

From YouTube:

L.Kay, GGM and Chancie, 'Finally say Goodbye'. This tracks about leaving the past alone, letting go of it and moving forward, following Gods will and plans for your life, but the key thing is that you have to Find God first before you can let Go of the past.

Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Iw4I-gdIU0

Colonel Mustard

A great band from Hastings. Chatting to Haydn, they seem to come from multiple dimensions to create a real, real mixed bag. What larks, eh! Can you tell that he went to college with Billy Childish!:

Colonel Mustard are a group of five guys, each with their own excentric and ecletic tastes and influences, bought together by their need to make unforgettable and fun music. They will take you on an emotional musical journey, all the way from melancholia to moshing, making sure your senses are titillated and inspired and left wanting for more. With helpings of mellow funk through to euphoric gypsy two-step, sweet lullaby waltz’s and just a dash of Ska, the five Colonels will take you on an adventure never to be forgotten.

Check out t'MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/wearecolonelmustard

Oggling mind-boggling blogs

This is a celebration of the great blogs that I follow. In a sense it is a responce, but more about exposing their wonderful thoughts to a "wider" readership:

The Long and the Short of It
Wonderfully Bible-driven blog of ponderings, how to write a blog and what is important to shout about. Also a bit like a Fab ice-lollie. Very readable, engagable and with definite clout:

I just wrote a massive blog-post, dealing with life, the universe and just about everything my little brain could think to talk about. I was witty, I was clever, I was generally trying to write the best darn blog-post there ever had been. I then opened the Bible and read this: ...

http://natalie-hill.blogspot.com/

Scribblings From My Desk
This blog is a mix of stuff that is hearty: very real, very well thought through and researched. It is a joy to read and I have found it very helpful personally. It is also a hub of other great teachers -- just check out the blogs on the right hand side.
I particularly like the recent post about Robbie Williams :)
http://peterdray.blogspot.com/2009/09/robbie-williams-bodies.html

A Lamp to Our Feet
Well, now we have a rich fruit pudding of a blog! Book-smarts, honesty and real-life situations are a few reasons why this is just quality.
I'm going to try and put into words, drawing from my meditations and thoughts on both these books over the past few weeks, exactly why I feel more joyful because of them but it's going to be a struggle because it seems paradoxical and confusing even to me!
http://alamptoourfeet.blogspot.com/

Punk, barbershop, the market, teaching

Star Hipsters
These guys rule.
Socially concious punk rock.
Check out these lyrics ...

Right men just bleed the poor
And I can't take no more
'Until We're Dead'

For me this rings bells with Chris' thoughts from the pyrotechnic drama we say at Greenbelt (totally forgotten what it was called ...). Throughout was the lament of 'Give everything you have to the poor ... Is this too much? ... Then give a tenth? ... Is this too much? Then don't steal from your poor brother ...'
Chris' thoughts were that in a sense we (in the MC West) do deprive people all over the world of their natural resources to keep us in states of luxury. I feel that 'Until We're Dead' reflects that frustration and the desire to make a change, starting with the man in the mirror if you like.

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/starfuckinghipsters

Barbershop


At the weekend Lewis and I went to a barbershop singing workshop. It was amazing! Lovely tunes and lovely people. Check out barbershop culture -- there is more to it than I thought and it is pretty cool (although less boaters that one would like). It is a good hobbie ... I'm not sure if I will 'join the club'...
Websites: http://singbarbershopinsussex.com/sussexharmonisers/index.htm

Borough Market
Another weekend, anthoer AMAZING adventure! Borough Market is absolutly brilliant. Everyone is friendly, london style, which is perfectly wonderful. And free samples! Kevin and I ate so much cheese! Can't wait to go back!
Website: http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/

Teaching
It is great. What have I learnt? Loads! I think the most important thing so far is LISTENING. This is hard, as at the moment all I can worry about is 'am I doing it right?'
We'll get there in the end, eh?

Read everyone's blogs -- they are greats!
Lots of love

Chatty

A selection of my thoughts on a tea-fuelled September evening.

Ham

I love Sam's blog. He writes about just the same sort of things I do.
Check out this blast from the past with the killer title 'If you fell over in the woods, would you make a sound?':

"I don't know why I'm directly addressing 'you' ... as the reader of this blog, as, obviously, nobody reads it, so you don't exist. "

Genius. I'm going to have to read them all.

He's also just got his website up. I've just had a look at it and it is ACE. I'd no idea he'd done (so much) work ...

http://www.samdransfield.co.uk/index.html

***

The BNP prt. 2

Fear comes from hate.
Hate comes from fear.

We have to love the BNP.
Someone has to.
Listen to thier stories.
They need to be broken with pity and love.

Love breaks fear.
Love breaks hate.

God equip us for our mission.

***

Amanda Palmer

The only reason I would follow twitter really is to follow Miss Amanda Palmer's tweets. She is a hugely sweet person, a great artist who loves music, her fans and her life. If I was to have a fictional dream (fictional and dream?!?) dinner party she would be the guest of honour. She uses Twitter and her blog as a world-wide love note to her fans, posting secret shows, using fans ideas, posting photos etc.

Wonderful.

Who is Amanda?: Amanda's Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/whokilledamandapalmer
Amanda's blog: http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/171930303/fringe-london-out
Amanda's Twitter: http://twitter.com/amandaPalmer

***

My Folks

I'm sitting with my parents listening to C. S. Lewis on audio tape. They are pretty tired, almost falling asleep. I love them both very much. It is great being back home. I vow to love them, visit them and look after them as much as I can for the rest of our lives.

***

Teaching

Not long to go now. I start my course on Monday. I'm determined to give it my best. I owe it to tomorrow's youth.

More later, gang!

The Climate Rush

Hey, Suburbanaughts!

At the Greenbelt there was a talk given by Climate Rusher Tamsin Omond. So apparently she is a Christian! Not that this is what she is famous for, or why her Climate Rush protest group is famous:

Climate Rush is inspired by the actions of the Suffragettes 100 years ago, who showed that peaceful civil disobedience could inspire positive change. We are a diverse group of women and men who are determined to raise awareness of the biggest threat facing humanity today - that of Climate Change. Our government acknowledges the huge problems we face from Climate Change, but carries on with business as usual. We demand DEEDS NOT WORDS because individual choice alone cannot curb CO2 emissions if we are to stop runaway global warming.

http://www.climaterush.co.uk/who.html

There is nothing in itself wrong with this. But I think that there are bigger threats to humanity than climate change; the Climate Rush group are only scratching the surface. The motives for Tamsin and our fellow brothers and sisters show that the natural concern for our planet springs from a desire to worship God:

1 O LORD, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory

above the heavens.

2 From the lips of children and infants

you have ordained praise

because of your enemies,

to silence the foe and the avenger.

3 When I consider your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which you have set in place,

4 what is man that you are mindful of him,

the son of man that you care for him?

5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honor.

6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands;

you put everything under his feet:

7 all flocks and herds,

and the beasts of the field,

8 the birds of the air,

and the fish of the sea,

all that swim the paths of the seas.

9 O LORD, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8 (It was the best I could do on the spot. I love this psalm anyhow.)

Think of all the brothers and sisters doing great work that generates so much coverage that goes under the radar within the secular media. Think of all the Christian Sufferagettes who strove for justice not only for thier contemporaries and generations of women to come for the glory of God.

God bless you, Tamsin.

"Deeds not words". Whatever, everybody.

Lots of love xxx

Web link: http://www.climaterush.co.uk/whatnext.html

Tamsin's Twitter: http://twitter.com/tamsinomond

P.S. My friend Simon has just started a new blog about his adventures in New York. This makes me very happy.

Childishness

1At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

2He called a little child and had him stand among them. 3And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5"And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. ..."See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.

Matthew 18.1-5/10

So I saw Billy Childish at Greenbelt this year. He communicated the importance of a "child-like" perspective of the artist:

Children play. Adults pretend.

Children wonder. Adults "know".

This draws startlingly close to the passage in Matthew, imagery that describes the attidude (and the wrong attitude) of someone seeking sanctification or something. I don't think it was a coinsidence I found this passage later that day.

What are the points Jesus and Childish are making here?

'The Happiest Blog on Earth' vs. ...

Hey gang,

For some reason I was looking for a happy blog and I found this: http://www.smilemyday.com/

I must admit that it is pretty cute ( I especially enjoy the rather fetching photo of Sean Connery) and it is a lovely project, but I feel that they are missing some great smiles. So here is Jack Nicholson with conpliments from 'If GRINS Could Kill'. XXX

'The Happiest Blog on Earth' vs. I.G.C.K

'The Happiest Blog on Earth' vs. 'Scribblings'

on a more practical note, this blog may offer a better understanding on happiness which is more enduring. This is called 'joy': http://peterdray.blogspot.com/search/label/joy

I hope to have my own thoughts on this one day.

Lots of love!

Also Samurai Jack rules!

Guerilla Art

Hey Suburbanaughts,

Guerilla art is the surreptitious, and often sudden, creation or installation of unauthorized public art, often with the purpose of making an overt political statement. The term is often used interchangably with "street art."
Guerilla art consists of reclaiming space and changing its dynamics with images or counter images, art that has been created anonymously and left on walls or in places such as public squares. Guerrilla art is not only spray paint and text and images. It can also encompass theater and film projections projected on walls of buildings.

http://www.concepttshirts.co.uk/guerilla-art.php

This is the book that I found in the Tate Modern bookshop:

http://painting.about.com/od/productreviews/gr/guerilla_artkit.htm

Of course, the concept is hugely attractive, but then you open it and it's all like seed-bombs!! What??

I mean, nothing wrong with an organic source of protest -- and don't forget that slow, secret sense of smugness that follows -- but the hot-blooded wannabe street artist isn't motiated by the commitment of nursing an infant sapling. Sneaking out in the middle of the night to water an acorn just doesn't cut the mustard.

Spray paint damages the environment and your lungs and is pretty much illigal (unless you are a professinoal artist), so what is the solution?

A wonderful form of pasting!

All you need is water, flour and sugar:

http://forums.whyweprotest.net/11-fliers-pamphlets/how-make-glue-wheat-paste-posters-1841/

However, for the ultimate in guerilla art (one that Smith forgot, thankyouverymuch) is MOSIAC!! Hail the Space Invaders! World-wide invasion!!!


Check out the website:

http://www.space-invaders.com/

Oh, and people don't blog enough.

and very Irish accents rule.

Lots of love.

Platitude for August Mood

If you have a loud mouth

You had better have strong arms.

Suburbanaughts

Once again, shock street artist Banksy was on the news t’other day: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8206442.stm06442.stm

His latest exhibition ‘Banksy vs. Bristol Museum’ finishes at the end of the month. It seem be emphasising provocative sculpture rather than his “infamous” graffiti. http://www.banksy.co.uk/

Sure, the man is still revered by fifteen-year-old school kids, but it seems that he also has loyal fan base within fellow middle-classers.

After consulting a well-known journal (you know the one), I have identified the hallmark of the middle class and used this to identify a new brand of middle class ideology I will call ‘suburnaught’. The name comes from the concept of projecting head-in-the-clouds ideology whilst hiding feet firmly planted on the suburbs.

Suburbanaught vs. Middle class ideology

1.) Cultural identification: This is right on the money. As proven by the BBC article, the middle class are guzzlers of pop culture. If you need any proof that this is true, check out the any exhibition at the Tate Modern.

2.) Education: A high percentage of the middle class go to university. Obviously, this can have a great mind-opening effect; however the pinnacle of this for the suburnaught is usually Marxist platitudes and conspiracy theories (for example see Zeitgeist - or don't. ugh.).

3.) Hypocritical thinking! Hypocracy I say!!: The conflict between the provocative attitudes gleaned from their education (predominantly anti-bourgeois) and reality (bourgeois) makes the suburnaught the loudest of hypocrits. For example suburbanaughts have been known to criticize universities and all corporate education as brainwashing, despite benefiting from such an experience themselves (see point 2).

4.) Inability to escape middle class roots: No matter how many aliases they use, the suburnaught will always be caught with their camo trousers down, revealing them to be embarrassingly middle class. Examples of this include Banksy and Peter Doherty.

5.) Use of mass media: Although the suburbanaught complains loudly and provocatively, they rarely act directly to combat their targets. Instead they use indirect weapons such as mass media (art, essays, ‘zines, music, blogs ...). Although media is an effective tool at projecting the suburnaughts’ ideology on a global scale, this drastically limits the impact of their message on the individual who is on average lightly curious by the pop culture (see point one).

***

This post is in response to many things, mainly in response to words. People talk a lot about the injustice in the world – talk a lot – without actually doing anything themselves. This is infuriating self- indulgence and must be stopped. Suburbanaght culture can be used to destroy, but let use it for good, being voices and hands in the world to make a change. Don't forget all the great middle class suburnaughts like Joe Strummer, Amanda Palmer ... Rage Against the Machine, I don't know... the altruists rather than the egotists ... Missionaries!

"The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” (Luke 10.2)

In dedication to all my brothers and sisters on mission all around the world. A hopeless suburnaught salutes you. God bless you all.

Futurism at the Tate Modern

Manifesto of Futurism (F.T. Marinetti)

... We will sing of great crowds excited by work, by pleasure, and by riot; we will sing of the multicolored, polyphonic tides of revolution in the modern capitals; we will sing of the vibrant nightly fervor of arsenals and shipyards blazing with violent electric moons; greedy railway stations that devour smoke-plumed serpents; factories hung on clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke; bridges that stride the rivers like giant gymnasts, flashing in the sun with a glitter of knives; adventurous steamers that sniff the horizon; deep-chested locomotives whose wheels paw the tracks like the hooves of enormous steel horses bridled by tubing; and the sleek flight of planes whose propellers chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer like an enthusiastic crowd.

Extended version: http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/manifesto.html


Manifesto of the Futurist Painters (Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini)

1. Destroy the cult of the past, the obsession with the ancients, pedantry and academic formalism.
2. Totally invalidate all kinds of imitation.
3. Elevate all attempts at originality, however daring, however violent.
4. Bear bravely and proudly the smear of “madness” with which they try to gag all innovators.
5. Regard art critics as useless and dangerous.
6. Rebel against the tyranny of words: “Harmony” and “good taste” and other loose expressions which can be used to destroy the works of Rembrandt, Goya, Rodin...
7. Sweep the whole field of art clean of all themes and subjects which have been used in the past.
8. Support and glory in our day-to-day world, a world which is going to be continually and splendidly transformed by victorious Science.

Extended version: http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/painters.html

***

So yeh. Italian Futurism (1910-1914) could be described as Cubism’s angry cousin and Vortism’s older brother. The whole movement is a blur of movement: physically, technologically, psychologically, individually, corporately ect. dedicated to passion for the future and revolution.

There are some good pieces here, and the exhibition does well to cover the spread of Futurism throughout Europe (France / Russia / England ...) and there are some good paintings by Umberto Boccioni, but I was hoping for more pieces from my favourite Gino Severini (Dance of the “Pan-Pan” at the Monico, 1909-1911, below).



Some things change meaning and significance over the years, but who doesn’t enjoy heady, provocative manifestos and the wild, gestural painting of passionate people?

Follow the exhibition here: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/futurism/default.shtm

Construtive Protesting

How are we supposed to react to the BNP?

The BNP’s track-record (fascism, racism, homophobia, sexism, heresy) puts a really big big bee in a lot of peoples' bonnets: that’s why so-called “anti-fascists” protest and riot against BNP festivals and marches and punk bands "commitment to politics and resistance” like The King Blues encourage people to “Throw bricks through the windows of BNP headquarters!” during their gigs. I was present at such a gig, at this years Rebellion Festival, Blackpool.

But no ground is given if a campaign of hate is combated by an equally violent retaliation; it becomes an endless cycle of hatred, the grand canyon of misunderstanding grows wider and both parties end up looking the same.

A similar problem arises with debate. It is almost impossible to change someone’s attitudes by arguing with them. Sure, you might “win” in the sense that you pour unending logic on someone’s head, but if you’ve ever argued with someone about their beliefs, you’ll know that it doesn’t work like that. Debate with the brainwashed can again end up as an endless circle going nowhere.

So what do we do?

How do you counter hate? The obvious answer is love. Not in a way that gets nothing done, but in a way that builds bridges instead of smashing faces. The best example of this I have seen on the protest circuit is the annual ‘Anarchist Vs Capitalist Midnight Cricket Cup’ held by the Space Hijackers. This is brilliant because it is creative, fun, non-violent and most importantly, relational.

This stunt is practically evangelistic! Why isn’t my church doing something this cool? Are we not motivated enough? Not creative enough? Not relational enough? Of course, the most affective / offensive weapon that brothers and sisters need to attack is the Gospel of peace (Ephesians 6.15) - but if the Space Hijackers use cricket as a vehicle for forging relationships between anarchists and capitalists, then perhaps brothers and sisters can set up the stumps for a fascists vs. Christians test. Then move on to the world series!