Ich hiess Sabina Spielrein: My name was Sabina Spielrein – A documentary film directed by Elisabeth Ma¡rton
Pushing a new meme
Currently the naturalistic worldview is insufficiently expressed
within most cultures. The purpose of this movement is to form an
umbrella Internet constituency of individuals having social and
political recognition and power. There is a great diversity of persons
who have a naturalistic worldview. Under this broad umbrella, as
Brights, these people can gain social and political influence in a
society infused with supernaturalism.
As someone who grew up taught atheism in the most reverent way,
and for most of my life having thought of myself as a humanist, it
seems strange I don't like this movement. But I don't.
I am not on the liberal theologian's side either. Nor a theist or
even a polytheist, nor wicca even Starhawkian, though she appeals.
Not a person of faith.
Does that leave anything? Yes! And we are an even more isolated
bunch than the brights – at the risk of helping to spread the
unaesthetic meme. As someone who works with the psyche, and who knows
there are autonomous depths at work in our lives I am ok with being
something more than a naturalist. Perhaps of poetic temperament – which
is different from faith and it is not bright, give me shaded,
deep, chthonic, moist, soulful, hidden, dappled, dark. I don't
want a meme for it.
When ugly is good and pretty is bad
Clay Shirky has some good insites here: Many-to-Many: Why I Don’t Like Wikis Email
Weblogs provide a good counter-example. While wikis make a poor presentation medium (when my students use wikis, they universally and unconciously move the content into Word, PowerPoint, HTML or Flash when they ahve to present), weblogs are in many ways too pretty.
Every day I grieve the messyiness of email. I dont like it at all. It is not the plain textness of it but the html mess and the lack of a clear quoting protocol… one that was there in the early days. Then there is the whole line length issue, broken urls and so on. There is a loosing battle to keep emails in plain txt. I cant even find a decent email client. But Clay is onto something here… the mess is somehow convivial.
swimming in language sea
Just saw the DVD The Source about the Beats. Had to go and
find (and found) the points listed below which were
spoken in the movie by Johnny Depp. These tips make a nice
counterpoint to Garbl's (see below).
Belief & Technique for Modern Prose
by Jack Kerouac
1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for
yr own joy2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical
inhibition14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior
monolog16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the
eye17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language
sea19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in
mind22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture
better23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr
morning24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language
&knowledge25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of
it26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American
form27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman
Loneliness28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under,
crazier the better29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled
in Heaven
This is too easy!
William Gibson stops blogging blog-end:
The bits and pieces that Joseph Cornell assembled in his shadow-boxes wouldnt have seemed nearly as interesting if hed simply left them arrayed on the bench of some picnic-table - and they certainly wouldnt still be there.
I crave the sweet and crazy-making difficulties that can only be imposed by the box, the Cornellian stage, the frame, of a formal narrative.
Makes sense, I need to get into the difficult stuff too! Damn.
Later: Been thinking about this and it seems to ignore one, that weblogs are a box, a FORM. Secondly they are a way of doing research.
email or e-mail?
Explored Garbl’s Editorial Style Manual and found:
Page for E, where he cites:
e-mail A shortened version of electronic mail. OK to use e-mail (lowercase) in all references, including first. Capitalize as E-mail only to begin sentences, headings and headlines. Do not drop the hyphen. Follow the same style for words like e-business and e-commerce.
Made me wonder if I am on the loosing side of this as I prefer “email” – not as a general rule for initial based words, just that one, email, because it is ubiquitous. How does it Google?
267,000,000 for email
15,000,000 for e-mail
Not only that, but in the last search it asked me if I meant email. I am sticking with email! Not just because of the numbers, I stick with counselling because of the culture I live in, and email is a bit like that. It was not till Wired lost its original impetus that it changed to e-mail, it was part of its demise as an icon for online culture.
While I have my view on this it does not take a way from the site – the site is a nice one to have a link to – covers a lot of ground.
Writing Style on the Web
Garbl’s Writing Center, wonderful site. Web oriented.
Welcome to Gary B. Larson’s portal to a free editorial style manual, annotated directory of writing Web sites, concise writing guide, personalized advice and writing forum.
He has a powerful page on Bush Lies as well and the values shine right through the writing style material. He has a sense of how words can hurt and how they can heal.
When I see a site like this I become curious about American English, International English and in my case New Zealand English. There really is no one style for all. I run into problems with my site as I have Online Counselling and Online Counseling to deal with. I always write counselling but need to put the more common American one in the various places for key-words etc.
Here is how they Google:
2,290,000 counselling
8,890,000 counseling
One of my palm doodles
more here.
Couch
Speaking of Freud's couch, here is a beautiful image.
Probably by Edmund Engelman
Engelman's photos were used as a basis for the set in the film
Nineteen Nineteen
CyberTherapy Conference 2004
CyberTherapy 2004 – 10-12 January, San Diego, CA.
This looks like it is more about the technology for a wide range of e-health rather than psychotherapy online. When it comes to psychotherapy I am a bit of a luddite – if that can be applied to an online therapy enthusiast. The great potential of plain text emails is mostly underutilised. Therapy thrives on simplicity. Freud is famous for a couch! It was a device to reduce visual contact. Many of the boundaries we take for granted today also reduce usual interactions. The emphasis on the communication, on what can’t be seen in rl – the inner stuff is important. Psychotherapy spares the inner world of the complexities of ordinary day-to-day life.
So I am not an enthusiast for real time and more devices to replicate reality, not for the purposes of therapy. Images are a different story. Drawing, painting, photos and cinema all have a part to play in therapy, others’ art and one’s own art. Art is a way of going beyond the surface of life to the experience of life. Art therapy online makes good sense.
But I digress from the actual conference, which sems thorough given its brief.