Homage to Friends

Something in your last post sparks yet another re-beginning: the sense of collage as an "homage to friends."

I think you're on to something here ...

Eleanor Kaufman has written a book on Bataille, Blanchot, Deleuze, Foucault, and Klossowski entited -The Delirium of Praise-, and it leads w/ this quote from Mark 5:9

Then Jesus asked him, 'What is your name?'
'My name is Legion," he replied, 'for we are many.'

Kaufman's work is an effort to explore the "friendships" of these French intellectuals, such that she claims that "Deleuze and Foucault are not so much individual writers adn thinkers as they are a mode or a configuration or even a constellation" (70).

Or, Bloc.

"They are a multiplicity that encompasses, in every gesture or evocation, a vast network of domains that might be variously classified as philosophical, the political, the personal."

Or, Popcyclical.

"They are not one thinker or even one unit, but rather an approach to thought--which is also a singularity--one that traverses a wide array of discourses."

In plainspeak: Lots of inside-jokes.

"The concept of such a thought-configuration is nowhere better articulated, in fact enacted by being articulated, than in their corpus of mutally glorifying essays. Such a mode of ENCOMIUM AS CONVERSATION, neither critique nor original, might best be characterized as the replication or double of that which it describes: thought as pure event, thought as theater, thought as style or gesture."

In other words, within this friendship --this delirium of praise-- there is a movement towards thinking thinking's thought ...

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I don't know if it is fair to think in terms of friendship w/ regards to Fredric Jameson. Certainly he has his clan. But how much time is spent BLOCKing other clans and other bands ?

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Insofar as our students are concerned, of course there homage to friends is much more "private," though from an outsider it may appear much the same. The very idea of High School, after all, thrives on a sense of different packs all sharing in the event called prom. It's no wonder that their collages should contain lists of favorite songs from those events and that they should come across as "the same old song" --THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME-- even as it seems so different for the students and their friends.

The difficulty I think is in moving this sense of friendship to wider fields.

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As another example, I'll use Thomas, mostly to see if he's still listening in. When he writes, I would say that his work is, in a sense, an homage to friends. In one of the essays that Byron mentions in the essay T sent out, Thomas mentions Marilyn Manson. I bet he had friends that he used to talk about MM with.

The difficulty was his using that friendship such that one might hear Ross Winterowd's arguments differently.

Thomas doesn't exactly shut down Winterowd, however. It's just that his alternative friendships come through.

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I don't know, k. I guess what I am trying to say is that I like being friends w/ folks that have friends. That doesn't mean they have to be my friend back. In the movie, Adaptation, one of the pivotal scenes in the movie is when Kaufmann's brother says: "You are what you love." And this love does not necessarily need to be reciprocated.

For me, when I read Eleanor Kaufman, I find this sense of the ENCOMIUM AS CONVERSATION a rather profound idea.

Students, in their collages, of course, are making little memorials to their friends. It might not seem like much. But I would claim so much is work of friendship. Listen to Keroauc-Ginesberg or Coltrane-Coleman or Cixous-Derrida or Davis-Ronell ...

Deleuze does this, as I mentioned, in thinking of Guattari and his rodeo ride ...

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Is there room for friendship --the delirium of praise-- in utopia ?

seems to me that by its definition utopia is, in some sense, there in advance.

maybe your sense and jameson's sense is a slouching towards utopia ...

i don't know. i know that thomas used to like to point to his FRUITopia, but that's a different topic.

... utopia ... fruitopia ... uTROPE-ia ... uTOPOI-ia ... dsytopia ...

reminds me of my friend in S.F. wrote his MA thesis on Dystopia in road literature and he used, after a conversation we had, Edward Abbey's -The Fool's Progress- ... I mentioned this story of stopping in the cemetery in Copeland, KS when we ate at the Arby's on the way to the airport earlier this summer...

Thanks again for lunch, btw.

Current Collage

Below is an excerpt of an exchange that is currently unfolding on the WPA-list. I am posting it here as an example of some "thoughts" concerning collage.

You'll note that I have included Jenny Edbauer's smart thoughts on this matter. I will say that I admire Jenny's work a great deal, and --truth be told-- I am more than a little envious of her recent job appointment at Penn State.

When I read Jenny's post, it reminded me of the importance of sometimes saying one's views quickly and then letting others contribute (or not contribute). I modeled my response, in this case, on her brevity, though you'll note that I also feel compelled to demonstrate/perform some of my ideas in the third part of my reply.

I am curious what you or Thomas think about Todd's questions and --if there's anything to say at all-- about my reply by way of collage. Let me say this, however, before you read what is enclosed:

I have this dream or fantasy that folks on WPA --and perhaps in the field of English overall-- that, in addition to all the fine adminstrative ideas and necessary data collecting that there will be micro-movements of performance in the approach to "writing." Jenny Edbauer's work, I think, elsewhere approaches this sense, though it doesn't really come across in the short message I have excerpted here. (Again, I think brevity is important, but then there are times when I'd like to get caught up in a "performance" of some kind.)

Thomas does this is in explication of Brian Enos, particularly his taking anecdotes from Enos's experience w/ a phonograph and re-mixing that into this discussion of Taylor. I like illustrations like these. I've never really listened to Enos before, but Thomas's work makes me want to check it out.

... This is what I like about Collage : There are so many things to check out and re-link w/. Mark C. Taylor, as I may have mentioned earlier, gets a lot of mileage out of his daughter's bedroom collage in -Nots- ... He plays w/ the Derridean sense of "GAP" as well as noting interesting juxtapositions w/ Robert Raushenberg.

I don't know. I guess I've always seen COLLEGE as COLLAGE ... I love re-mixing ... So, I am sharing that here, for what it's worth. I know people are busy and that Summer 05 is soon to become Fall ...

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I've written to this list before with some general questions; now I come with
a fairly specific, though large, one. I am on the core team to create
a new high school in Douglas County, CO, a little south of Denver. We open
next fall. We've been charged by the new principal to create something
different, something outside of the traditional model of high school. Basically,
we've been given the freedom to think "outside the box."

This is, of course, why I am writing. I am heading the curriculum committee. While we do want to be non-traditional, we also want to make sure that our students get what they need for college. I'd like to set up a 9-16 articulation, at least as much as possible.

Given the quality of the experts on this list, I'm hoping to draw on your
knowledge. So, I'd like to ask a few questions. I'd appreciate any responses or thoughts you have. I'll hopefully be taking these responses as we build the curriculum for the new school. Reply on or off list. I'd just really like to hear what you have to say on some of the following questions:

1) We're building an English department from scratch. As college
educators, and FYC teachers, what would you like to see us provide our students?

2) If you could say anything to a new high school regarding the
curriculum -- English or beyond -- what would you suggest?

3) In your eyes, since you see our kids after we let them go, what
areas should we really try to improve in this new high school? What are the weaknesses you see in your students that we might create a curriculum to
try to fix?

Of course, I'll take any suggestions, thoughts, book suggestions, etc.
I just want as many quality voices as I can get since without voices we
can't make a quality decision. It's an exciting time, but we can't forget that
we, as a high school, are in a context that includes college -- a reality for
the majority of our incoming students.

Thank you in advance for your comments. I look forward to reading them.


Todd Reynolds
English, High School 8
Castle Rock, Colorado
Yeatsian@aol.com

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Todd,

What a cool opportunity this is. Two suggestions:

(1) Bring students into a curriculum that is designed for a digital age.
It's surprising to me when students think of "writing" only as the thing you do
in Microsoft Word. The skills of "digital literacy" (if you want to use this contested term) are every bit as important as teaching The Essay. You can teach things like rhetorical reading in many ways, not just essay-based analyses.


(2) Keep the joy, interest, creativity. Every semester, I start off with
at least a few first year students who tell me how much they hate, dread, and
fear writing. I can't say that I blame them, however. I remember high school
English class, which wasn't so different from their experiences. Research papers
don't inspire enjoyment. That's a loss--one that does a lot of real damage.

Good luck,
Jenny

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Todd,

I'll limit my suggestions to two as well:

1) Stress the importance of bibliographic networks over the "Great Book
tradition" that tend to valorize individual genius, or what can be worse, the
high school textbook tradition that makes use of linear timelines rather than intertextual negotiation.

2) Allow students to experiment and invent new methods of learning through
electronic mediums that Jenny mentions below. Although such experimentation
may run counter to stated goals and objectives, it important that high school
teachers find ways to accomodate (and extend) student / cultural variation.

Drifting w/ a recent encounter --an itch towards your scratch-- re-begin the
next curriculum development meeting simply with the word "Adaptation."

See where it takes you and others ...

Here's one such example :

http://www.allmoviephoto.com/photo/2002_adaptation_007.html (scroll down)

http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hc&cf=gen&id=1800018581

http://www.creativequotations.com/one/1672.htm

http://www.mediamatic.net/article-200.5768.html&q_person=200.2286

best,
Geof

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