2010.01.12 01:00 - Poetry into Presence

The Guardian for this meeting was Wester Kiranov. The comments are by Wester Kiranov.

When I came in, Aztlan Foss was already there but inactive. When he recovered, we plunged right into a conversation about the limits of and in talking. Later Calvino Rabeni and Flux Constantine joined us. The conversation meandered between serious and playful.

Wester Kiranov: hi
Aztlan Foss: hi Wester, sorry I had this thing minimized
Wester Kiranov: np
Wester Kiranov: have you been here before?
Aztlan Foss: yeah I think this is maybe my 3rd time
Aztlan Foss: I loose count easy
Wester Kiranov: well at least I won't have to explain the basics then
Wester Kiranov: is there anything you want to talk about?
Aztlan Foss: not sure
Aztlan Foss: I was thinking the mind is always thinking but as soon as you start to say anything you have to ignore the whole and walk linearly across an idea
Wester Kiranov: that's a nice thought
Aztlan Foss: hehe
Aztlan Foss: it's like, talking about things makes you miss the big picture, but I guess there's really no other way to communicate
Aztlan Foss: unless you draw it or I guess music can do similar things with feelings and auras
Aztlan Foss: some music just sounds "fun" or "kind" and other music sounds "aggresive" and "anxious"
Aztlan Foss: maybe that's why art is so cool
Wester Kiranov: it's one thing you keep on noticing here, how all communication comes up short, but the only alternative is not communicating anything
Wester Kiranov: hi cal
Aztlan Foss: also poetry has a very interesting feature. It take the features of paintings and music and puts it in to words
Aztlan Foss: maybe if we all spoke more poeticly we could understand more.
Calvino Rabeni: Good day
Aztlan Foss: sup Calvino
Wester Kiranov: if we spoke more poetically we would probably understand different things, not necesarily more
Aztlan Foss: yeah I guess you're right
Aztlan Foss: poetry usually captures more in less words
Aztlan Foss: at least the good poetry
--BELL--
Wester Kiranov: I was thinking just yesterday, that this is because poets constrain themselves
Wester Kiranov: they don't try to say all truth or all beauty at once, they communicate a little bit
Wester Kiranov: and they don't just try to make beautiful words, they write sonnets or haikus
Wester Kiranov: and that actually gives them freedom, it does not take it away
Calvino Rabeni: good points, wester
Calvino Rabeni: I've been contemplating similar questions about poetry
Aztlan Foss: yeah, I think words in poetry, allthought they seem like the point of it all I think it's about their intent
Aztlan Foss: like, paintings aren't about the paint it's self, most of the time.
Aztlan Foss: and music isn't about just the sound.
Wester Kiranov: of course not
Aztlan Foss: you have something up in your head and then you use something to communicate it
Calvino Rabeni: Of those who think about what to do with words, poets are among the first rank
Aztlan Foss: or, you can communicate something that didn't exist before
Wester Kiranov: I don't think good poets use poetry to say something they already thought, they let the words help them with the thoughts
Calvino Rabeni: True Wester
Aztlan Foss: I'm sure some poets sometimes have something to say and they use their skills to communicate it
Wester Kiranov: it's about control vs skill, all the things we were talking about last yesterday
Aztlan Foss: but I guess the point is what they are able to convey
Aztlan Foss: what probably makes something poetry is when you say something that couldn't be said any other way, but poetically.
Wester Kiranov: which means it wasn't there before the poem
Aztlan Foss: it could have been
Aztlan Foss: like, my frustration in traffic while I'm about to be late for a meeting.
Aztlan Foss: I could write a poem about it :P
Aztlan Foss: I coud say "I was frustrated!"
Wester Kiranov: there is a Dutch song about it
Aztlan Foss: or, I could paint you the feeling with words
Wester Kiranov: but it's not very poetic actually
Calvino Rabeni: I have a quote tying this discussion with the time workshop
Calvino Rabeni: Wherever you go, a new combination and upon its liquid, language depends. In a true tongue, what passes the throat is thought and those who sing don't follow time. They make it. - Jean Day
Wester Kiranov: you always have a quote up your sleeve :)
Calvino Rabeni: :) Luckily no
Aztlan Foss: hehe interesting. it kinda touches in an idea I came across in some podcast a while back. Where they were discussing what came first, the universe or conciousness?
Wester Kiranov: too philosophical for my taste
Aztlan Foss: they used genesis as an example of the idea, so it's been around for a while, where god speaks the world in to existence.
Calvino Rabeni: Calvino Rabeni has written a poem about that subject
Calvino Rabeni: But I refuse to quote myself :)
Wester Kiranov: awwww...
Aztlan Foss: hahahahaha
--BELL--
Wester Kiranov: very nice question if it's late at night and you're not completely sober
Calvino Rabeni: Wouldn't want to look back into the Big Bang without some kind of "aid" wester
Aztlan Foss: hahahaha
Aztlan Foss: they're building big bangs at Cern I think, they got that thing back up and running.
Calvino Rabeni: Little Big Bang
Wester Kiranov: so they make little universes? manned by dwarfs?
Aztlan Foss: they're smashing hadrons in to each other and collecting the data. I'm not a scientist but I think it's cool SOMEONE knows what they think they're doing.
Calvino Rabeni: Do you write study poetry writing, Wester?
Calvino Rabeni: write or study I meant
Wester Kiranov: Not at all. I think I once wrote a poem when I was 13
Wester Kiranov: it was godawful, of course
Calvino Rabeni: Just a first date
Calvino Rabeni: Poetry seems a way to break out of the rationalism bottle
Aztlan Foss: most art is
Calvino Rabeni: Poetry isn't text-with-funny-rules, as people sometimes think
Wester Kiranov: my husband used to write poetry, and read it for people. But that is a loooong time ago
Calvino Rabeni: It's language-with-conscious-rules
Calvino Rabeni: A much more unrestricted use of language
Calvino Rabeni: Anyway, I liked your point about poetic limits
Aztlan Foss: I kinda think of it as using words that convey ideas and putting them together in such a way that the ideas react with each other to communicate as close as possible what usually can't be communicated
Aztlan Foss: there's things that we think that don't have words
Aztlan Foss: so you say other words that together conveys the idea or builds one
Aztlan Foss: instead of explaining it.
Calvino Rabeni: More than "convey" perhaps, is to bring it into Presence
Aztlan Foss: which I guess would mean ideas have free-form relationships to each other, just like sounds have relationships to each other.
Aztlan Foss: yeah
Calvino Rabeni: Or point out its already present condition
Aztlan Foss: well I think it already exists, i guess it depends how you look at things.
Aztlan Foss: like, when it comes to music I think all music allready exists, it's all about how yo're going to combine what's there
Calvino Rabeni: Improv too?
Aztlan Foss: like grabbing raw materials and sculpting them or putting them together
Aztlan Foss: yeah improv too, you're using raw material and doing it on the spot
Calvino Rabeni: Is it more like construction, or more like discovery?
Aztlan Foss: I guess what I mean is that the raw material is there to do as you please with
Aztlan Foss: both
Calvino Rabeni: So some things are "fully formed" already?
Aztlan Foss: when you're a bigginer it's mostly discovery
Aztlan Foss: once you got experience you can construct
Aztlan Foss: and ther's always more to discover
Aztlan Foss: no, some things have predictable effects
Calvino Rabeni: Calvino Rabeni wonders if Beethoven constructed or discovered the 9th symphony
Aztlan Foss: you know that if you get certain things together you get a new song.
Aztlan Foss: he probably knew what he was doing
Aztlan Foss: it's like the question of the wheel being discovered or invented
Aztlan Foss: it took knowing that stuff rolls
Aztlan Foss: or maybe someone came across it at some point
Aztlan Foss: or maybe someone got some square stone and palyed with it till they stumbled uppon a wheel
Aztlan Foss: same with anything
Calvino Rabeni: Some creative works must seem like a dialogue to their artist during the creation process - they become a kind of outside force to be reconned wit
Aztlan Foss: stuff that rolls exists so you can make it. What ever you can do with poetry exists somewhere
--BELL--
Aztlan Foss: and maybe because you can only percieve what your mind allows.
Flux Constantine: hello PaB denizens :)
Aztlan Foss: shhhhh we're being
Aztlan Foss: :-P
Flux Constantine: oops
Wester Kiranov: hi flux
Aztlan Foss: haha
Aztlan Foss: hi Flux
Flux Constantine: you can be being whether it's silent or not
Wester Kiranov: you can't not be being
Flux Constantine: exactly
Aztlan Foss: oh man I guess I'm being for good then
Calvino Rabeni: stuck with it
Aztlan Foss: when I was a kid I always wondered what it would be like to not exist.
Flux Constantine: damned to be being forever... how terrible :)
Aztlan Foss: not in any negative way
Aztlan Foss: like, I knew I was born at some point
Aztlan Foss: so I was like "what was it like BEFORE that?"
Flux Constantine: what was your original face before your parents were born? etc.
Calvino Rabeni: Well Flux, what's changing and not changing in your world these days?
Flux Constantine: everything and nothing
Aztlan Foss: everything in your head?
Calvino Rabeni: Somethings in particular?
Flux Constantine: I went out, got drunk, and won a free cell phone
Calvino Rabeni: :)
Flux Constantine: I must be magic
Flux Constantine: to be this lucky
Calvino Rabeni: Keep it up :)
Flux Constantine: I'll try :)
Flux Constantine: what is this posture, anyway?
Calvino Rabeni: Next time I win 2 of something, I'll send one to you
Flux Constantine: the teenage, knee-destroying posture
Wester Kiranov: hope you don't win 2 elephants
Flux Constantine: no.... they will stampede
Wester Kiranov: the postage would kill you
Calvino Rabeni: Not up to me... flux will get one .... *whatever*
Calvino Rabeni: You can click the pillow to change sitting position
Flux Constantine: elephants were the most ferocious thing the ancients could think of....
Flux Constantine: would destroy the whole village
Flux Constantine: ok
Wester Kiranov: the red cushions have different postures
Flux Constantine: I tried a RL yoga class today
Flux Constantine: it's too hard
Flux Constantine: but I know the lotus posture
Calvino Rabeni: Play favorites - just do the easy ones
Flux Constantine: the hell with the rest
Wester Kiranov: yoga, isn't that where you put yourself in impossible knots because it feels so good when you're out of them again?
Flux Constantine: the guy kept saying, "this is about getting rid of habits"
Flux Constantine: how about the habit of not fucking listening to you
Calvino Rabeni: by getting new ones :)
Flux Constantine: I knew you guys would get it :)
Calvino Rabeni: Try thai massage, it's the same pretty much but easier
Calvino Rabeni: they do it to you
Flux Constantine: ok, suggestion noted
Aztlan Foss: haha
Wester Kiranov: have to wake up hubby - brb
Flux Constantine: let him sleep
Flux Constantine: everyone else is
Aztlan Foss: maybe she's going to make him go to work
Aztlan Foss: poor guy :-P
Flux Constantine: the people here, I think they are automata. certainly they are not living human beings
Calvino Rabeni: which people
Aztlan Foss: people here? where here?
Flux Constantine: the ones I encounter
Flux Constantine: in RL
Aztlan Foss: some don't sleep!
Flux Constantine: I tried not sleeping. but I guess I sleep a little
Calvino Rabeni: they could be robots, or zombies, or something like that?
Flux Constantine: maybe. but I'd better treat them as humans anyway
Flux Constantine: out of respect
Calvino Rabeni: Calvino Rabeni thinks of the stories with robots that desire to be human
Calvino Rabeni: it might egg them on, Flux
Flux Constantine: hmm
Flux Constantine: so what else should I do?
Flux Constantine: fall asleep again....
Flux Constantine: write down dreams
Calvino Rabeni: do same, but a few more eggs?
Flux Constantine: no entiendo
Flux Constantine: mas huevos?
Calvino Rabeni: seeds, in another manner of saying
Calvino Rabeni: something the programming will accept reasonably well
Flux Constantine: start again, from the beginning
Calvino Rabeni: but might generate novel behavior
--BELL--
Flux Constantine: you're welcome, bell
Calvino Rabeni: We were talking poetry before you arrived
Calvino Rabeni: Maybe it is subversive
Flux Constantine: so do you guys ever use voice or video?
Flux Constantine: what's with all this privacy?
Flux Constantine: it's outdated
Aztlan Foss: text?
Calvino Rabeni: Agreed, it is pretty austere
Aztlan Foss: it's probably just easier to record text
Flux Constantine: easier == boring
Calvino Rabeni: But it's handy to process using programs
Flux Constantine: let's make it complicated
Calvino Rabeni: Valid point Flux
Aztlan Foss: yeah, you can read it, parse it, search it, index it.
Calvino Rabeni: BUt it gets pretty complicated later on
Flux Constantine: yeah, but superintelligent machines are coming
Calvino Rabeni: Perhaps it would be better for it to be complicated right now
Flux Constantine: they'll know how to read this crap
Calvino Rabeni: NP, we can stay ahead of those machines
Flux Constantine: and all the stupid security cameras and so on
Flux Constantine: P = NP
Calvino Rabeni: If you want to go into about 8 databases, just say NSA
Flux Constantine: hmm
Calvino Rabeni: Ack, that must have done it :)
Flux Constantine: I tried to take video of the TSA. they didn't like it
Calvino Rabeni: WB Weste
Calvino Rabeni: r
Aztlan Foss: wb!
Wester Kiranov: sorry guys - i am leaving after all. feel free to go on with your discussion
Flux Constantine: of course, here they won't even let me smoke a cigarette without sounding an alarm
Flux Constantine: it's the USA: land of warning labels
Calvino Rabeni: Warning - this warning label is less informative than it appears
Wester Kiranov: bye
Calvino Rabeni: Take care have a good day wester :)
Flux Constantine: brb
Calvino Rabeni: Calvino Rabeni wonders what makes a really good rant
Calvino Rabeni: A friend of mine belongs to a rant clan, but my own predecessors were artists of the sulk.
Flux Constantine: rant clan?
Aztlan Foss: well it has to be about something complicated enought to be meaningful but not so important that it is a genuinely big issue
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, a family tradition
Flux Constantine: what does that mean?
Calvino Rabeni: Well practiced and mentored through the generations
Calvino Rabeni: "Rant" as in, going on at length about a pet topic, expressing outrage, concern, etc.
Flux Constantine: hmm
Calvino Rabeni: And usually the audience is well familiar with the Form
Flux Constantine: or you just shut the fuck up
Calvino Rabeni: So it's not about the information - its a performance
Flux Constantine: what else is there?
Calvino Rabeni: The beginners start by having a program installed
Calvino Rabeni: and they go on automatic for awhile
Flux Constantine: a person installs a program?
Calvino Rabeni: but later they go into the creator position with respect to the performance
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, using the robot metaphor
Flux Constantine: ah
Flux Constantine: hmm
Aztlan Foss: 2am should head to bed
Aztlan Foss: good night!
Flux Constantine: that seems kind of inhuman, yet it seems to match my observations
Calvino Rabeni: Same hour here
Calvino Rabeni: Too late
Calvino Rabeni: BYe Aztlan
Flux Constantine: stay up.... you can do it
Flux Constantine: pass out tomorrow
Calvino Rabeni: What's your hour of day Flux?
Flux Constantine: 3:15 am
Calvino Rabeni: A nice time of day
Calvino Rabeni: One of my favorites
Flux Constantine: a nice time... for what?
Calvino Rabeni: Well, usually not much is going on - birds and cars etc. are inactive
Flux Constantine: ah, I see
Calvino Rabeni: It depends on whether alone or with company
Flux Constantine: but these SL birds are chirping incessantly
Calvino Rabeni: I forgot about those birds
Flux Constantine: I wonder how to forget about basic sense perceptions...
--BELL--
Flux Constantine: maybe by falling asleep
Flux Constantine: ok then
Calvino Rabeni: After awhile you will forget it used to happen - assuming you turned it off