GETTING REAL (& Keeping IT)
Our mascot & muse: Great Horned Owl
hooting across the parking lot from
Jensen this morning, supposedly
the most aggressively
carnivorous of all fowl
go-go dancer from the
his disengagement from college and student stint
with sitar under Ali Akbar Kahn.
He’d been released from prep school for proffering
a moon out the back of the school bus on the way
to a squash match—hitch-hiked west & acquired
proficiency in pharma-copasetics sufficient to earn
him 4-F status and the opportunity to pursue a
career in music rather than military.
With his gorgeous top-less go-go dancer: a collaboration
to found a dance troupe that took them all over the world,
including a week's Artist in Residency at Warren Wilson
College, many awards and many exciting times.
Neither has degrees but are on faculty at
Universities of Santa Cruz & Utah (known for its dance
program.) Jon teaches composition for dance &
philosophy for dancers.
(“If I could say it,” said Martha Graham, “I wouldn’t have
to dance it.” And Jon, knowing the opposite as also true:
“If you could dance it, no need to be saying it, damnit.”).
These two are my culture heroes,
inspiring to me as gutting moose
running sled dogs cross barren
wastes, lip stick on a pit bull,
service projects and study
abroad.
Irritated by the emergence of Sarah Palin-ism as possible
threat to Obama-my-love, my sister outlaw has been urging
me to vote, “Damnit Sam: “I’ll even set up the on-line
registration for you.”
It has forced me to think thru the
incommensurateness between my
Position —and my lack of Velocity:
Getting REAL (then keeping IT)
Our job is to bring external realities together
with the reality of the political mind.
Don't ignore the cognitive
dimension.
It is through cultural narratives,
metaphors, and frames
that we understand
and express our
ideals.
George Lakoff is the author of The Political Mind:
Why You Can't Understand 20th Century Politics
With an 18th Century Brain
@@@@@@@
What’s a College For?
Differentiating for the Sake of Argument
Say, something like:
..............II. Ways We Talk About Hap
(disciplines, traditions, III. WAYS WE TALK
What’s Happening .... ABOUT ways we
.......................................talk about hap
is, of course, way beyond me..
I sample.
Represent.
Systematize
in accord with my
conscious purpose, aims,
goals & always good intentions;
how could it be otherwise? --and
I get back what I ask for, pray for,
project--not necessarily in my terms
of desire, damnit; but in accord with
our overall generalized disciplines,
traditions and common common
sense: their parameters.
II. (W.W.T.A.H.) is where I "live"
or swim, say: Joe Fish in the matrix:
amniotic--all soaking wet inside my
cultural narratives, hidden and explicit
metaphors and frames, as Lakoff says:
habitats of humania, my sustainability
structures I would sustain sustainably
--best I can. It would take something
like an immaculate conception or B.B
Wolf or getting hooked out of the
pond to have my habits & habitats
invaded sufficiently for NEW to
register. It's beyond me.
III. (W.W.T.A.W.W.T.A.H).
"School Mode" (not to be collapsed,
conflated or confused with "Church" &
"State" mode) This is where the Lakoff
Work Program might be said to take place.
Where else does the job of putting external
realities and the political mind in play happen?
Cultural narratives, operating & controlling
metaphors, and the frames of minding that
regulate the tolerances that set & re-set my
limits of sustainable margins for error and
rooms for play—put in play?
I talk about talking about how I talk but it doesn't change me.
Not a unilateral deal.. Never mind. Just vote: it's a Cultural
Narrative. A Metaphor & FRAME. Shared Governance.
xxxooo, Sam
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