Daystar Boutique - Lakewood

To contact us Click HERE
Wondering where to buy incense in Cleveland? Liberal bumper stickers? "Tobacco" pipes? Hippie clothes? Handmade candles? Hemp jewelry? Incense holders that are shaped like dragons?

You know the kind of shop I'm talking about. That particular kind of boutique that is frequented by a particular kind of person. These places harken back to my childhood, as my friend when I was younger was an entrepreneur of one called Fire & Earth, back in the early 2000s, in the Great Lakes Mall. It was there I first learned to use a cash register and talk to customers.

So let's just say that the smell of incense and batik dresses will always remind me of my happiest days of youth.

Anyways, I digress. Daystar Boutique sells a great selection of things at a decent price. They sell incense for a cheaper price than the local dollar store in Rocky River does. Their bumper stickers are awesome to look at, even though using one might make you 100x more likely to get pulled over by the cops. And I could just spend all day there smelling candles.



So yes: I recommend it!

Appletree Books - Cedar Fairmount

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  There are so few local bookstores left in the world, what with Amazon and other Internet retailers pushing out even the big-box in-person stores. Appletree books is a tiny bookstore with a good local flavor. They're right near La Gelateria and Liquid Planet so if you're out on Cedar-Fairmount for a night out you can go browse in here and find something unique.

 They have books and cards, a nice childrens' section, and most importantly, that small-bookstore feel.

Buckeye Beer Engine - Lakewood

To contact us Click HERE
 
The Buckeye Beer Engine in Lakewood is one of those places where the beer list is a small novel and the food menu is full of gourmet burgers.  I enjoyed delicious homestyle pierogies with my burger and it came with a delicious breaded pickle. The portion sizes were enough for two meals.
The service was slow but I didn't mind: it was a busy time and it took me long enough to eat my food. Their vast menu is available online if you'd like to check it out before going.

 
We enjoyed a Lambic Framboise: a very low alcohol beer that's more like a fruit juice.

Mama Santa's - Little Italy

To contact us Click HERE
People in Cleveland think that the Little Italy area is lovely and romantic, but having lived there for three years, I think it's kind of overpriced and bigoted. There's definitely a dark side to Little Italy, including but not limited to a racist mob and some super gentrification going on.

Most of the restaurants in Little Italy are overpriced and vermin-infested. One of the cheaper places to get something to eat is Mama Santa's; and it's where we got pizza from while we were in college.

I went with my friend to Mama Santa's for a walk down memory lane, and both of us being visibly queer, we were treated with some condescension (weird looks, snippy remarks) from the waitress. The food was the same ordinary food we enjoyed during college; nothing special.


Note well that they don't serve pineapple on pizzas here... the waitress made it clear to us that we'd need to go up to Hippie Coventry to get something so outlandish as that.

Antiquing in Lakewood - Lakewood Antique Mall

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I found this old picture of a Schmidt Beer advertisement. I'm not sure how old it is, but I like posters with ladies in them.
 
Aaaand some green glass punch cups!
 Lakewood Antique Mall was our first stop on our antiques tour of Lakewood. We found some interesting things there, as you can see above. There are more antiques stores on Detroit Avenue, which I'll add later, and include the interesting pictures from those places as well.

This is actually a response to David's DJ Shadow post down there but the comment wouldnt allow my video

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I was under the impression that John Oswald's Plexure, released in 1993, was the first entire album to depend solely on other musicians' work. Plexure is about 20 minutes of mixed and mashed snippets of pop songs released between, I think, 1980-1990, or at least somewhere in that span of years. It’s pretty disorienting, but also extremely interesting, if you can stand what essentially sounds like somebody fiddling with a radio tuning knob, constantly cycling through radio stations for 20 minutes.

However, I think Oswald has been quick to distance himself from "sampling" in the traditional sense, like what is done in hip-hop. Oswald labels what he does as Plunderphonics (essay: Plunderphonics or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative) and seems to draw the distinction between Plunderphonics and sampling in that hip-hop and other sample-heavy genres, e.g. glitch, normally attempt to fit their samples into an existing peice, or a peice which will exist; either way, the sample is merely a layer among layers. To "plunder" is instead to make music exclusively out of samples, to use the sampling machine as a musical instrument in itself. To create plunderphonic music is then to use such an instrument to recreate "noise" (what we hear around us, natural or unnatural) the same way that composers (Oswald dwells on Ives in particular) create melody out of existing tone scales and public domain pieces (since many of those older composers were creating in a copyright-free era).

It seems that Oswald is aligning himself with Futurist composer Luigi Russolo, who created “music” out of assembled devices which would recreate noises such as whistling, thundering, creaking, etc, and John Cage, whose compositions using radios in the 40s and 50s (I think that’s right) preface Oswald’s own radio-derived pieces. Essentially, Oswald provides an avenue out of the copyright dilemma by asserting that A. “plundering” has been a musical tradition stretching from Bach to jazz to contemporary pop music, and B. the sampler is a unique instrument, just as are pianos, trumpets, guitars, capable of producing music that, though it may be derived entirely from other pieces, is wholly unique on its own and is thus a creation equal to any other musical or artistic creation.

I have Plexure if anybody is interested in hearing any of it, but I won’t post anything from it since I don’t want anybody unwillingly bombarded by such abrasive dissonance. I will, however, post a Girl Talk song; Girl Talk is the pseudonym for DJ Gregg Gillis, who is a contemporary mash-up artist. Mash-up, as a genre, I believe probably comes closest genre-wise to reproducing Oswald’s aims in Plunderphonics, except that mash-up, generally speaking, is party music.



The song is track number 10, I think, from Gillis' 3rd album, Night Ripper (Warning: Explicit language). The video was created by Concordia University professor Matthew Soar, for the Open Cinema Source Project.

Part of the fun of mash-up music, and Girl Talk's in particular, is also being to recognize all the samples (there's something like 200 or so,maybe more, samples spread out over 16 songs) which relates to a buzzword thats been circulating recently about the "pleasure of the known," in which culture has become so reflexive and referential that part of the cultural experience, and part of participating in society, is being able to place references (think of such fare as Mystery Science Theater 3000, Family Guy, the Simpsons, not to mention tons of poetry, etc). To be a participant and to derive pleasure from participation seems increasingly tethered to knowing sources, and being appreciate the layering of sources (a source referencing a source refering a source). Of course, this is incredibly off topic and deserves a different post entirely.

As for what David said about subdivision, I like the application to text poetry and I agree that prosody seems to be the replacement for the music that would accompany a video poem (I guess that should be reversed: music is the replacement for prosody). Or even for a video poem without music, video itself has a rhythm to it, as Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky noted in his book Sculpture in Time: "The dominant, all powerful factor of the film image is rhythm, expressing the course of time within the frame....[The expression of time]...is the very foundation of cinema...Rhythm...is not the metrical sequence of peices; what makes it is the time-thrust within the frames. Rhythm...is the main formative element of cinema....Rhythm in cinema is conveyed by the life of the object visibly recorded in the frame." (Sculpting in Time, pgs 113-120).

Anyway, I agree that sampling, or plundering involves the subdividing of ideas in a LFT kind of way; the only quibble I have, David, is your statement that "[DJ Shadow] unit[es] others' fragments". Isnt it the other way around, though? Don't his sources, and the sources for most other musical sampling/plundering begin as united, and then the artist/sampler/Dj/plunderer fragments those compositions? At least, that really only applies to music-- not that a DJ couldnt unite out of fragments, I just dont know of any case where a DJ has done so. I think the point you made is still relevant for poets though, and maybe this is where the alikeness between a DJ and a poet ends: a poet can unite fragments or fragment unities and create poetry out of either. We're lucky to have it both ways.

As for what I was supposed to post, about the supposedly French Oulipian idea about how any word has the potential and the weight of all other words (which I think I now actually picked up from Derrida, not Oulipo) I'll get to that this weekend, since what began as a simple "Hey, here's the link" has turned into something else.

Glow

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We Glow In The Dark: A Hybrid Sculpture


We Glow In The Dark (WGITD) is an interactive public sculpture powered by solar energy and made mobile with innovative green folding technology. The goal of WGITD is to use public sculpture as a way to bring sustainable energy and opportunitites for artistic multimedia programming to diverse communities across Philadelphia. This project is made possible with support by City Of Philadelphia and Department of Human Services and Mural Arts Program.

on The Preparedness of Moments (a Powers of Tines consideration)

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In Limited Fork Theory, the moments are always ready.

The moment of enactment, of idea taking shape, not out of nothing, but out of some energy and substance available to become the electrical and chemical activity of thought. Both the mechanisms and what powers the mechanisms of thought are available. A moment is ready to become tethered to an idea, to become part of the birth stamp of idea. A peculiar —and I think, marvelous— enlargement


—time need not be physically stressed to accommodate moments in which idea is born. Time is apparently flexible. A moment opens, not necessarily as a slit, but in all directions and on all scales necessary for what will occupy the opening (which could also take the form of a swelling or bubble or other distortion without causing time to stop functioning). Occurrence may be experienced sequentially, but the line of sequence may take on any shape, may twist, curl, spiral, loop, fold, coil, and so forth, or may be, on some scale[s] of encounter, apparently straight. So the idea system may change shape, may be configured and reconfigured and still be supported by the time and space that host it, the configurable time and the configurable space that host it. The idea system's movement and growth are unrestricted within what is possible for movement and growth of idea systems. (image of neuron response to an electrical signal from Contemplating Thought by Susan Gaidos at Science News for Kids)

Brain need not be physically stressed in order to accommodate idea systems and their possible associated infinities. But there is expansion occurring. An emerging idea system contributes to there being more in the mind than before the emergence. The idea system itself may grow, may lead to subsystems capable of as much or even more growth than any of its source systems. And there is room for the expansion, always room for expansion. I have not had to evict an idea system in order to make room for another. When inactive, it is as if the idea system is compressed for better storage, but when necessary, it may unfold, and have space for that unfolding, the size of my head apparently constant. The hat I wore before an idea system emerges sill fits after emergence. In the mind there are many universes. Compressed universes. And both electrical and chemical keys and locks to these kingdoms.

(image of linked neurons from Contemplating Thought by Susan Gaidos at Science News for Kids)

The time and space in which thought occurs is available —the idea system will fit into the existing brain, the forms of enlargement and expansion the idea system require apparently not enlarging the brain's physical dimensions, at least not in an easily measurable way. There are bursts of electrical and chemical activity when idea systems are born—sometimes twin idea systems, triplets, or more. Explosions perhaps similar to fireworks: flowering idea systems. Luminous flowerings. Lightning, of course, as idea trails. I would love for my hair to respond to these flowerings, a glow traveling from the roots to the ends of the hair, maybe even splitting those ends more. I would like this at least once. I am thinking of this light, and it is a radiant happening in my mind. And in the mind of a mermaid I imagine thinking while submerged in water, her glowing hair like other glowing tentacles in the ocean. She comes out of the sea as if her head's on fire, strands of hair like streaks of sunset, intensified by dust and debris light filters.

Maybe I'm too easily impressed, wowed too much by existence itself —the existence of anything— but I'm taken with the wow of how there's room for an idea when the idea emerges. No pinch or squeeze in my experience. Within what exists, an access point appears to, for instance, a tube-like structure where a universe may grow, attached to a facet of a universe that itself may be attached to a facet of yet another universe or system of existence with complex geometry.

Space and time are able to accommodate the idea system, no matter how elaborate the growth of the world of that thought system. A new reality may emerge without displacing realities already active; in fact, the thinker may easily navigate to other idea system realities. The electrical and chemical streams will flow (unless damaged —in some cases, perhaps damaged on some scale in some location by aspects of the flow of the erupting idea system). Forms of displacement (including forms of distortion) can and do occur, but are not necessary, may not the norm; in most cases, a new reality of thought emerges in the brain without apparently altering space and time although space and time were full before the arrival of the idea system that prior to arrival apparently had no existence.


The moments are available, moment systems: moment and the tethered context of moment, the where of when, the when of where, for instance. The moment system comes in stereo, is quadrophonic, has dimensions of being, complex geometry. The possibilities of moments are arranged in all possible arrangements, fulfillment occurring when a path is selected, followed. A ideas emerges in a moment and fixes that moment to its emergence, produces a general definition further defined by subsequent choices and behavior along the path of emergence. Now are choices limited to the shaped infinities available within the context of the fixed moment, each decision reconfiguring the available possibilities within limited infinities. So there is a sequence of decision or a line of decision. A line of what happens in the idea system. The line is made of sequential components, but the shape of the line may be any possible shape. May be a spiral or curl, a loop, a zigzag, or may be straight, etc., may be of mixed form, may change direction yet still be expressible as sequence: this happened, then this happened, as the happenings form patterns and shapes of diverse and complex geometries.
(tree mapping of streets of Seoul from Lee jang sub's ComplexCity Project)


Every possible configuration of moment is waiting to become event, etched into a memory of happening, even what may be imagined, what happens in imagination, and what decision excludes. Possible substance is not the same as fulfilled (it has happened) substance. Available for fulfillment vs fulfilled. The where of availability lacks the physicality that defines the where of our existence; accessing the where of availability produces fulfillment, but an act of fulfillment indicates that what was necessary for fulfillment could be accessed.

The moments that are available as if in queues configured in every way that queues may be configured. So some queues bend somewhere in their queue state. Some rotate somewhere in the queue state. Some twist. Some decay. Some spring. Some (parts of) queues are concealed in (parts of) queues). Some queues are reflections, shadows, eclipse systems. Some queues commit to digesting. Some are uncommitted for now. Some are gaseous. Noisy. Some are apparently silent because their vibrations are not measured in an audible range, but the trembling is nevertheless symphonic sometimes. This is all at once. Every possibility exists. Can be mined. Plucked. And so forth. And maybe there is someone to select every possibility. Maybe there is no waste of possibility. Maybe, for this would have to be one of the possibilities, there is a version of me who still sees clearly out of the left eye.

It is as if one moment system contains all possibility, is all possibility, is contained by all possibility until defined by specifics of happening.

The moments are ready to be enacted, to become path, to become a queue of limiting factors as the moment trail unfolds.

Infinities within the limiting factor of enactment are always available.

Each selection shapes the remaining infinities, each smaller, but no less infinite.

DJ Adio at Beachwood Place with Phillip Bimstein's Door music reveal some of the Vibrational Ways of Doors in Augmenting [Limited Forked Theory] Configurable Spaces, including idea spaces, and a fondling of ripples of creation —riding some of those wavy portals

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While at Beachwood Place Mall, looking, as usual, for evidence of interaction (such as shadows and reflections), I came upon DJ Adio in a shop window, positioned where both he and his reflection could be seen on two glass planes on which reflections from passersby also temporarily converged, diverged, then converged again on the second plane. A sampling, if you will, of space, of occupancy; a sharing of moment as he spun red discs of music I could not hear.

The sharing of space as reflections converged seemed to be a visual aspect of what the DJ was mixing; persons he did not know, could not see were becoming part of him, walking through his image, enlarging what his image could contain, just as he was enlarging sonic space and sonic meanings.

DJ Adio was functioning as a door, as a bifurcation point, as an entrance and exit point, an access point —and his gestures seemed to be shuffling what was converging, configuring the sonic and visual geometries of the connections. A fantastic door system that I wanted to highlight and explore further with Philip Bimstein's Door music and added vocal tracks expressing and exploring some gist of my observations that were part of the convergence, part of the collaboration.

DJ Adio Door Ways Ghost Relay: an adventure in vibration studies was a poam outcome of an unplanned investigation of a convergence of DJ, reflection, observation, meaning as transit system, the mixing of elements by a DJ in the configuration of a moment.

In this investigation, the movements and gestures took on more context as ripples of experience, shockwaves fanning out from a central event: the DJ's role as an assembler of realities within realities; DJ Adio was acting as a hub into which realities fed, a hub of convergence where he reassembled what converged and transmitted alternate versions, more of the other possibilities for the information that converged in his hub. DJ Adio as relay station, as transformer.

"You are mathematical. You don't have to do math; you are math." -Thylias Moss

To contact us Click HERE
Here's a little math I can get with:

“A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal-sized billiard balls.” --Terry Pratchett

Also, I may consider a side-gig in thaumaturgy.

Yes. I think I may.

“I believe anything is possible.
Research into quantum physics
proves that a system changes
simply by someone observing it.
Therefore, all you have to do is be
awake and aware of your environment,
and that enables you to
transform everything around you.
It sounds like hocus pocus, but
scientists are coming to realize that
just thinking about something can
make it happen. Turns out maybe
faith can move mountains.”
--Christine Anderson

DJ Adio at Beachwood Place with Phillip Bimstein's Door music reveal some of the Vibrational Ways of Doors in Augmenting [Limited Forked Theory] Configurable Spaces, including idea spaces, and a fondling of ripples of creation —riding some of those wavy portals

To contact us Click HERE


While at Beachwood Place Mall, looking, as usual, for evidence of interaction (such as shadows and reflections), I came upon DJ Adio in a shop window, positioned where both he and his reflection could be seen on two glass planes on which reflections from passersby also temporarily converged, diverged, then converged again on the second plane. A sampling, if you will, of space, of occupancy; a sharing of moment as he spun red discs of music I could not hear.

The sharing of space as reflections converged seemed to be a visual aspect of what the DJ was mixing; persons he did not know, could not see were becoming part of him, walking through his image, enlarging what his image could contain, just as he was enlarging sonic space and sonic meanings.

DJ Adio was functioning as a door, as a bifurcation point, as an entrance and exit point, an access point —and his gestures seemed to be shuffling what was converging, configuring the sonic and visual geometries of the connections. A fantastic door system that I wanted to highlight and explore further with Philip Bimstein's Door music and added vocal tracks expressing and exploring some gist of my observations that were part of the convergence, part of the collaboration.

DJ Adio Door Ways Ghost Relay: an adventure in vibration studies was a poam outcome of an unplanned investigation of a convergence of DJ, reflection, observation, meaning as transit system, the mixing of elements by a DJ in the configuration of a moment.

In this investigation, the movements and gestures took on more context as ripples of experience, shockwaves fanning out from a central event: the DJ's role as an assembler of realities within realities; DJ Adio was acting as a hub into which realities fed, a hub of convergence where he reassembled what converged and transmitted alternate versions, more of the other possibilities for the information that converged in his hub. DJ Adio as relay station, as transformer.

Products of Acts of Making: the Limited Fork Theory Poam as Investigation

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A way to enter a session of a system of making can be the setting up or configuration of an investigation, the purpose of which can be discovery of (some of) what happens under a set of conditions or parameters, as if to answer a question such as:

What happens if...? What happens when...? What doesn't happen if...? What doesn't happen when...? Etc.
Typically, a Limited Fork Theory investigation is carried out according to a set of rules related to the question[s] being asked. The maker applies the rules and documents what happens, that documentation a poam itself, the outcome system of an investigation. The outcome system is configurable, perhaps according to rules of the investigation or as solutions to how the outcome system can be displayed to help reveal interpretations and meanings of the outcome system or outcome data. (investigation logo made at spiffytext.com)

Rules of an investigation exist whether or not the rules are explicitly stated; rules (and their companion obstructions) provide context, and configure what will be possible to consider. Rules form a context of inclusion and exclusion. Some of the nature of access is shaped by choices governing what is considered and what is not considered, what becomes possible and what becomes impossible within the context of investigation, outcomes biased or configured to respond to the parameters of the investigation. Listen to rules and obstructions in Samuel Beckett's Rule number one:


Read some of Samuel Beckett's rules and obstructions from pages 97 and 98 of Molloy:


Click to investigate and experience more (rules and obstructions) of a more complete sucking stone sequence excerpted from Samuel Beckett's Molloy.


In an approach to poam as investigation, revision of the outcome system, other than modes and manners of configuration for revelatory display and access of information, would be considered manipulation of data, (further) tainting of findings, so the documentation of outcome is left intact, the data is left intact in all the forms in which data was collected, and continues to be collected, some the outcome of further thinking about the data, thought configuring and reconfiguring the data set into subsets which in turn may give rise to subsets of their own (which may intersect [on some scale in some location for some duration of time] with the initial outcome data). Display and interpretation of the outcome system data is configurable and reconfigurable. When outcome system sata sems shallow or flawed, then the investigation itself can be revised or revisited —reconfigured, and new data collected according to revised parameters of investigation.

Ask different (or what the investigator might consider) better questions the next time, and the next time, and the next time.

Try to determine all the contributing factors (that you can), try to identify all collaborators (that you can) as these factors can (and probably should, as participants in a system of information and activity) shape the possible configurations of the system investigated, configurations that vary as scale, location, and time is varied and context shifts. The geometry of the investigated system is variable and complex, structures that may connect (in some form) here and here, on some scale, in some location, for some duration of time —multifaceted (regular and/or irregular) structures part of super geometric communities of temporarily connected (in some form on some scale) multifaceted (regular and/or irregular) structures.

While in Toronto, at the CNE shortly after the publication of Tokyo Butter, I visited The Farm building where I was intrigued by an Ostrich and an unkempt man who seemed thoroughly mesmerized by the ostrich to the point of paralysis —he was able to move toward the caged Struthio camelus by only an inch per minute —powerless for having looked into the ostrich eye! He was under a spell, under hypnosis, under influence a spiritual calling, so I watched and filmed ostrich acolyte and watched and filmed ostrich, really interested in this culture of dependence and devotion (each contained by and containing the other simultaneously, a selected perspective determining momentary fixing of container or contained status —rather like the challenge of seeing both the young woman and old woman at the same time; the eye and brain shifts from one configuration to the other) unfolding so publicly, a slow ecstasy that would seem dynamic and explosive only when the footage was sped up. The man in white t-shirt had white hair, dirty white pants, like, somewhat a zombie snowman come to life under the influence and power of the ostrich —and that is the possibility I investigated in a simultaneity study: The Culture of Snowmen (a text poam in Tokyo Butter) temporarily connects with the living snowman-automaton. (ostrich head image from wikipedia commons). The video poam that follows investigates this temporary contact/interaction system as a study of simultaneity.






Once the video poam simultaneity study was configured, stills were extracted for a closer examination of what's inside the interaction at various locations:



Extracted stills (many of which are from spaces between film frames, progeny of the frame that precedes and the frame that follows; from locations of interactions between frames, the connective tissue of moments)have been compiled into a small booklet of ostrich culture of snowmen interaction stills. Each still is a form of page from a dynamic video book —a closed loop video book in its unchanging playback (varying frame rate or direction in playback scenarios shifts perceptual encounters and scale without actually altering the content; the video content is perceptually configurable, and can be edited further by anyone who has or acquires editing skills, but the video content is not self-changing) of video content dependent on technological mishap for change as opposed to be a system that changes within itself over time, or on changing assessments/interpretations of the content, or on direct tinkering with the video content by an agent outside the video content, for instance. Matters of resolution of eye and screen, and sonic issues related to playback device speakers and to ears are other factors contributing to dynamic qualities (putty qualities) of configurations of the Ostrich Culture of Snowmen video poam system.

Zooming into various sections of the stills reveals detail on an even smaller scale, detail that interacts with the pixels for other understandings and interpretations of the unfolded collaborative event moment. Zooming into the zoomed outcomes will reveal even more, including what might prove to be interesting and/or useful distortions once this zooming into the zoomed outcomes occurs as a bifurcation investigation (or subsystem or extension) of the initial investigation occurs. The extracted stills already provide extended consideration of interactions with two text systems: text generated with video editing tools and text scanned with a USB microscope (like one used in an episode of CSI ) from the print version of The Culture of Snowmen in Tokyo Butter. Stay tuned for outcomes of this planned further forking of the investigation, that with the plan (in any form, on any scale, in any location) intact, is ongoing. (CSI/proscope image from everything USB)


Beckett, another incurable tinkerer, investigates and tinkers with a configuration of his play What Where:

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A Limited Fork Thanksgiving (Joined in Progress) from the paper: "In the Arc of the Fork: A Journey through Limited Fork Theory and My Imagined Life as a Multispecies Ethnographer" The dinner table is a site for limited fork study. The dinner table is a reconfigurable, expandable location. Leaves can be inserted into tables as when there are exceptional gatherings and there is a need to multiply surface to host a Cornucopia, to host the guests that travel so many forks as highways to converge on Thanksgiving Thursday (to become part of the Cornucopia). Limited Fork exists to construct and to host the Cornucopia. The fork is a tool for gathering. As soon as the fork touches what it gathers, it changes what it gathers - inducing some modification in it – and transforming the world it has gathered from. The gathered something changes the fork, changes the gatherer. What has been gathered sticks to the forks of the tines that gather and branch, branch and gather to stock the pantry (that is itself a poam) for the making of poams. What escapes the pantry, what escapes the fork is free to take on new life, new interactions - always shaped by the contact of failed containment. A limited fork meal consists of anything at any or all scales (of time and place) in various phases of transformation (including all phase changes), in various re-defining states of interaction. The limited fork table adjusts and expands to contain the ever-expanding Cornucopia it attracts, that sticks to its tines (as table leaves). When the limited fork table is stretched to create space for the table leaves, a gap is produced where Cornucopia could fall through. The gap that the limited fork table creates is like the tears in muscle fiber that occur in exercise; it is also like a line break in a traditional poem in that both edge and gap (as niche) are created simultaneously. Consider Moss’s meditation of the line break cut and pasted from her blog Intro to (Limited Fork) Poetry: “The line break is a bifurcation point, a location where an event (the line itself) has obvious opportunity for change. The corner that a line break is also offers multiple directions, some not as well formed as others; so for many interacting with the bifurcation point, only the movement to the next line seems a reasonable choice. It is a reasonable choice, but not the only choice, for the line continues, in all of the directions possible from that bifurcation point. Various conditions and interactions with variables encountered in those directions shape the structure of form of what occurs in a particular location along a particular continuing line” (Original emphasis). The limited fork Thanksgiving table {is like a poem}/{is a poam} and can be broken at any site (not all sites breaking with equal probability or preference) which changes the conditions of what can gather into the Cornucopia. What is gathered into the opening has less to do with fit than with the possibilities of the moment fed from so many tangled streams of forking presence. Limited-infinite possibility saturates every dimension of the moment and as the gathering proceeds in its processes, possibilities are foreclosed as others are enacted as registers of the real. A beauty, gift, and paradox of Limited Fork Theory is that the non-enacted possibilities - that range of infinity that we could call the Foreclosed - remain as part of the feast!

"You are mathematical. You don't have to do math; you are math." -Thylias Moss

To contact us Click HERE
Here's a little math I can get with:

“A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal-sized billiard balls.” --Terry Pratchett

Also, I may consider a side-gig in thaumaturgy.

Yes. I think I may.

“I believe anything is possible.
Research into quantum physics
proves that a system changes
simply by someone observing it.
Therefore, all you have to do is be
awake and aware of your environment,
and that enables you to
transform everything around you.
It sounds like hocus pocus, but
scientists are coming to realize that
just thinking about something can
make it happen. Turns out maybe
faith can move mountains.”
--Christine Anderson

poem? ghost?

To contact us Click HERE
: investigating occupation and resistance :
: investigating the haunted and the haunting :
:: see it live ::
which of the many layers and fields that we navigate can we call our own?
which belong to others?
which others?

: in progress toward discovery :
: the voices that lie beneath the privileged textual voice of the poem :
: how multivarious presentations of a poem changes how it lives in space :
: how it is taken into the body :
: how it may interacts with the body :
: what threads come from the ways in which two poems interact with each other :
: what threads come from the ways in which they resist that interaction :
.what results.

Clayton County GA.teacher accused of molesting, abusing special needs students www.privateofficer.com

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CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. May 17 2012


A teacher is fighting to keep his job after claims he molested and abused his severely disabled students.

Clayton County Schools is trying to fire Adamson Middle School teacher David Vollmer after a paraprofessional claimed that he groped and abused his students while in class.

Monique Hall testified before an Employee Tribunal Panel hearing. She recalled what she thought when she says she saw Vollmer inappropriately touching a student.

"I was playing over in my mind, 'Did this just happen? Did he just grope him?'" Hall said.

She said Vollmer constantly abused his students. She said he once bent a student's fingers back as he screamed in pain. She said Vollmer also slammed a student down in his chair.

"He used both of his hands and slammed him down in his seat. Darren immediately started jumping and grabbing his butt," Hall said.

Hall testified Vollmer tickled students near their private parts as they sat in his lap. She said he stuck his hands down a student's pants, and even followed a student into a girl's bathroom.

"And if I was a parent I would not have wanted him in there with my daughter," Hall explained.

The school system called the sheriff's office, DFACS and is now trying to fire Vollmer. Vollmer's attorney said the allegations are false and witnesses will testify Hall had motives to get Vollmer out of the classroom.

Hall said she is just speaking up for disabled non-verbal students who can't speak for themselves.

"I just thought it was sad ... that the kids were being abused by their teacher. I thought it was very sad," Hall said.

The sheriff' office said it has forward its investigation to the district attorney's office.

The panel could decide to follow the superintendent's recommendation to fire Vollmer, it could go against that recommendation or come up with its own punishment.

Whatever it decides, the school board will make the final decision.

GA. man killed by police responding to deadly drive-in shooting www.privateofficer.com

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DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. May 16 2012 


Police have tied together a strange chain of events, including a deadly shooting at an Atlanta drive-in and a pedestrian struck and killed by a DeKalb County police cruiser.

Officers were called to a shooting at the Starlight Six drive-in theater on Moreland Avenue early Tuesday.

Police said Mitt Lenix, 28, of Jonesboro, was having car trouble in the area, and approached a man to ask for help. The man, Quentric Williams pulled out a gun, shot Lenix and raced off, authorities said.

Police followed Williams to Gwinnett County where he crashed on Lilburn-Stone Mountain Road and escaped. Police were still looking for him on Tuesday night.

At the same time in Stone Mountain, an officer responding to the call struck and killed a pedestrian crossing the road on Memorial Drive near West Mountain Street.

Witnesses told Channel 2 Action News that 27-year-old Clifton Hightower was cutting across the street toward a gas station when he was struck.

“We saw a dude coming across the street. Saw the police coming up the street, doing every bit 70 or 80 mph. No lights. No sirens, and, boom,” witness Jerrard Bullock said.

A police spokeswoman later told Channel 2’s Erica Byfield that the officer’s lights may have been on, but a traffic specialist was investigating.

Hightower’s mother, Anna Maria Davis, told Byfield the officers came to their home with the news a few hours later.

“They said, ‘Mrs. Davis your son has died, your son got killed last night,’” Davis said. “I was like, ‘No, we aren’t talking about my son, no you aren’t talking about my son. My son didn’t get killed last night.'”

Davis said that Hightower was headed to his sister’s house to baby-sit when he was struck.

“We definitely need to know something, why it happened, why his lights weren’t on, why 80 mph and why you took my son’s life. That’s what he took," Hightower’s father, Michael Davis said.

Officials told Byfield that Officer Jason Cooper was driving the cruiser and is now on administrative leave.

source-wsbtv

Non-emergency calls clog L.A. 911 sustem www.privateofficer.com

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Los Angeles County CA May 17 2012 Just before 10:45 a.m., Keith Marks called 911 and the Los Angeles County emergency response system sprang into action. A fire engine, a paramedic squad and a private ambulance -- eight men in total -- rushed to the Martin Luther King Jr. urgent-care center in Willowbrook.

When they arrived, Marks, 56, was sitting calmly in a wheelchair just outside the entrance. His complaint: he was having joint pain from gout and wanted his medication refilled.

"I can't walk," he said. "I need to go to the closest emergency room."

The paramedics checked his vital signs. Marks told them he called 911 after the county clinic wouldn't see him for free because he had other insurance. Then the paramedics did what Marks wanted -- sent him by ambulance to St. Francis Medical Center.

During an eight-hour period at L.A. County Fire Station 41 last week, paramedics responded to a handful of calls but only one actual emergency -- a man who reportedly had a seizure while driving on the 105 Freeway. Several other calls, they said, could have been handled differently if there were other options. The call from Marks was one.

"Really, what are we going to do for gout?" Capt. Ernie Clayton asked.

The incident illustrates a chronic problem -- unnecessary 911 calls that result in costly trips to already crowded ERs, which divert resources from true emergencies. Increasingly, uninsured patients rely on 911 as their only way into the healthcare system.

Now, four decades after public safety agencies began launching fast-response paramedics, counties around the nation are overhauling the 911 system to save money, improve care and reduce ER overcrowding, an especially acute problem in the Los Angeles area. Federal health reform is driving the changes, as hospitals try to reduce readmissions and the healthcare system prepares for more patients.

In San Francisco and San Diego, paramedics have worked with law enforcement to reduce the burden of alcoholics on the 911 system. Paramedics in Maine, Minnesota and Colorado are beginning to treat patients in their homes, doing preventive and follow-up care and helping manage chronic illnesses.

"The emergency room is expensive and not always a pleasant experience for patients," said Maine's community paramedicine coordinator, Kevin McGinnis. "It is much better to treat them where they are."

Although the discussions in Los Angeles County are just beginning, officials said they hoped to make changes to the 911 system in the next few years. This is the perfect time, they said, because there is federal money available for new efforts to deliver better care in a more cost-effective way.

"People are calling 911 not because they are really, really sick or really, really injured. It's because they have no other option," said L.A. County Fire Department Chief Deputy Mike Metro. Fire departments cannot continue to add engines and paramedics to meet the need, he said. "We have to have the ability to make different decisions."

Paramedics in L.A. County responded to 543,715 calls in 2010 -- a little more than one call every minute. About one in five patients taken to the ER might have been better served elsewhere, according to Cathy Chidester, director of the county's Emergency Medical Services Agency.

Under current emergency response rules, there is little flexibility. After receiving initial aid, 911 patients have only two choices -- either go to the emergency room or stay behind. In L.A. County, more than three-quarters take the ambulance ride, which can cost up to $1,500, even when their complaints are as minor as a cough or a headache. By law, emergency rooms must take patients regardless of insurance status.

Officials are exploring whether ambulances could take certain 911 cases to clinics rather than hospitals. They are also exploring whether paramedics could treat some people at their homes and refer others to primary care doctors or advice lines. And they are considering mobile health vans in some cases.

This is a skilled workforce," said Mitch Katz, director of the county Department of Health Services. "Their basic choice is to transport a person to the emergency room or not. That is not a very nuanced choice."


Katz said the goal is that all patients "go to the right place and the right time to see the right person."

California officials also are looking for ways to make the process more efficient and expand the role of paramedics, said Howard Backer, director of the California Emergency Medical Services Authority. Paramedic teams -- staffed to provide service 24 hours a day -- are qualified to do several medical procedures, such as insert breathing tubes and conduct electrocardiograms.

With additional training, Backer said they could help fill the primary care gap in California. "There are EMS personnel everywhere," he said. "It's natural to look at how we can do the most with the resources we have."

Changes won't be easy. California law restricts where ambulances can take 911 patients, and insurance, private and public, reimburses only when they are transported to hospitals. Clinics also would need to have the right hours, staffing and expertise to take the patients.

Then there is the concern about errors in judgment. What happens if a patient is taken to a clinic but really needed to go to an ER? What if a 911 patient is treated at home but really needed to see a doctor?

"It all comes down to liability," said Patrick Hanrahan, an L.A. County firefighter-paramedic. "We don't want to be left on the hook."

Hospital personnel already talk with paramedics in the field, so under a new system, nurses and doctors could help quickly determine the best place for a 911 patient to be treated, said Jim Lott, executive vice president of the Hospital Assn. of Southern California.

"This is long overdue," Lott said. "The communication is there, the technology is there, the expertise is there. There is no reason why this kind of triaging can't be done effectively."

Another problem is that paramedics and ambulances often get stuck with their patients waiting for ER beds to open; creating new protocols could make the process work more smoothly. "If you have ambulances waiting at the emergency room ... the people who need the care are not getting it," said Brian Bledsoe, who teaches emergency medicine in Nevada and has written several EMS textbooks.

At Station 41 in Willowbrook, paramedics said they have responded -- with lights and sirens -- to babies who wouldn't stop crying, people who couldn't sleep and alcoholics who drank too much. "In their eyes it's an emergency," Clayton said. "We know better. But once the call is made, we have to care for them."

On the day Marks called from the urgent-care center, paramedics from a nearby station headed to a Watts motel for a call about a man with a gunshot wound. But the victim, Terrance Montgomery, said he was shot and had been treated nine days earlier. The motel owner said she called 911 because Montgomery owed her money and she wanted him off the property.

As he was loaded into the ambulance, Montgomery, who is uninsured, said he hadn't seen a doctor since leaving the hospital the previous week. "This is going to be my follow-up," he said.

Later in the afternoon, paramedics went to the home of 90-year-old Nathan Shands, who had been vomiting for a few days. His granddaughter said she couldn't get him into the car, so she called 911 to take him to the hospital. She hadn't expected so many people to show up.

"She just wanted transport to the hospital," Clayton said. "She didn't understand 911 response."

Ga guman takes aim at kids getting on a school bus www.privateofficer.com

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HAMPTON, Ga. May 17 2012


Residents in a Clayton County neighborhood said a gunman was aiming for children who were getting on a school bus.

David Dillard said he yelled at a man who was in his neighbor's back yard holding what looked like a BB gun.

"About the time the school bus pulled up to pick up two kids and the guy started aiming the gun," Dillard said.

Dillard said the gunman took off running when he yelled at him, but his nephew went after the man.

As my nephew ran after him, he started shooting at my nephew with a different gun, because he had dropped what turned out to be a rifle," Dillard said.

Clayton County police said a rifle was found in the yard.

Homeowners in the Greystone subdivision in Hampton said they are on edge. They said they want to know why someone was targeting children and why police did not immediately alert the media when it happened Monday morning.

"Yeah, they should have called the media. Really, it should have been posted yesterday. I'm just going to be honest with it," homeowner's association vice president Curtis Berry said.

Channel 2's Tom Jones asked police why the media was not alerted immediately. A spokesperson said he was preparing a news release.

Neighbors said the incident is so serious, police were out in force Tuesday morning, with patrols and a helicopter overhead, to make sure children were safe as they boarded their buses.

Source:WSBTV.com

NYPD officer arrested for aiding heroin trafficking ring www.privateofficer.com

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New York City NY May 17 2012 A wiretap by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to obtain evidence against a heroin trafficking ring uncovered a surprising suspect, officials said: a New York City police officer.

A heroin dealer, Guy Curtis, asked the officer on one occasion how to get “gunshot residue off your hands,” according to the authorities. And they said the officer, Devon Daniels, was once heard on the wiretap asking Mr. Curtis for help getting “any working revolver.”


Those requests and others were described in a criminal complaint against Officer Daniels that was unsealed on Tuesday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. Shortly before, Officer Daniels, 30, was arrested on his way to work. The complaint accuses him of regularly misusing his authority to help Mr. Curtis, whom federal officials described as the head of a drug-dealing outfit in Queens known as Pov City.

Officer Daniels obtained a New York Police Department parking placard for Mr. Curtis, according to the criminal complaint, which was signed by Pathik R. Lotwala, an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

On another occasion, the officer, driving a vehicle belonging to Mr. Curtis, hurried to the site where one of Mr. Curtis’s associates was being arrested, the complaint says. After identifying himself as a police officer and talking to the arresting officers on the scene, Officer Daniels reported back to Mr. Curtis what he had learned, the complaint says.

It suggests Officer Daniels was at the drug dealer’s beck and call.

“Yo do them plates real quick,” Mr. Curtis once said in a text message he sent to Officer Daniels, asking him to run several license plates through a national law enforcement database to get information about the owners, the complaint says. “What u need I got it,” Officer Daniels replied, before sending along a name and address of the person to whom one of the cars, a BMW 5 series, was registered, the complaint says.

The complaint does not describe how Officer Daniels, who had worked as a patrol officer in the 111th Precinct in Queens, became acquainted with Mr. Curtis. But a law enforcement official briefed on the case said investigators believed that the officer and Mr. Curtis had been friends for years.

Mr. Curtis pleaded guilty in January to federal charges of conspiring to distribute heroin. His drug operation was concentrated in Jamaica, Queens, and federal authorities have said he was once stabbed in a dispute over drug turf on Jamaica Avenue. On a separate occasion, his top lieutenant shot at a woman believed to be the girlfriend of the man who stabbed Mr. Curtis, the authorities said.

Officer Daniels came to the attention of the Drug Enforcement Administration while investigators in the Wichita, Kan., office were monitoring a dealer there who received his heroin from Mr. Curtis’s crew in New York, according to the criminal complaint.

The agency began wiretapping Mr. Curtis’s phone in April 2011, leading to the discovery of his relationship with Officer Daniels, according to the complaint.

Once, the Wichita dealer wired $3,500 into Officer Daniels’s bank account as payment for heroin, which the officer passed along to Mr. Curtis, the authorities said.

The complaint charges Officer Daniels with misdemeanors of improperly using the law enforcement databases to which he had access as a police officer. In addition to checking license plates, Officer Daniels is accused of searching a database of warrants at Mr. Curtis’s request.

The complaint does not indicate whether the officer obtained a revolver from Mr. Curtis.

Officer Daniels entered no plea at his arraignment in Brooklyn on Tuesday.

Asked by the federal magistrate judge, Roanne Mann, if he understood the accusations, the officer responded, “Yes.”

His parents put up their house in Queens to secure a bond for his release.

The Police Department has suspended him without pay, Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said in an e-mail. He added that Officer Daniels faced “department sanctions, regardless of the outcome of the criminal case, including termination.”

The department’s Internal Affairs Bureau was also involved in the investigation.

Source:NYTimes

A Very Vera First Day

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On my first day at Vera Bradley, I went to our Industrial Road office to begin orientation. Not all of the interns started on the same day, so there were only about six or seven of us (there are 15 now). We learned about the internship program, the company and received a tour of the building. I then made the short drive over to the building in which I will be spending most of my time, the office on Production Road.



Production Road Office

When I walked in the front door, I completely fell in love. From the shelves of new and old products to the adorable seating area, everything around me was so "Vera". Production Road is actually Vera Bradley's original office, where all operations were once housed, including Product Development, Manufacturing, Distribution, and all Business Operations.




This just looks so inviting!





I love that I get to see this ... every day.

At Production, I was finally able to make it to the Human Resources area (affectionately known as the HR Cave). I met everyone on our team and started to get settled into my desk. As the day went on, I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn't just a one day deal, but I really get to work at this amazing company all summer long.




My desk - Complete with photos of friends and family, and some Vera too!
Now, two weeks later, it is starting to truly sink in, and thankfully I don't feel like someone is going to tap me on the shoulder and tell me that it is time for me to leave. The next step will be finding the willpower to overcome my constant desire to buy every bag, accessory or cute stationery item I see. Wish me luck with this one ... I'll need it!

The VB Intern Life

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I'm quickly learning that Vera Bradley's Intern Program consists of much more than just providing future professionals the opportunity to work in various functional areas of the company. In addition to our work, we have each been delegated a summer project, which we review with our fellow interns when we meet periodically, and that we will give presentations about at the end of the summer.

To broaden our knowledge and enhance our presentations, representatives from each area come to teach us about their roles in the company's overall mission. By the end of the summer, we should have a deep understanding of how Vera Bradley functions as a whole. Two weeks ago, we heard from Jeff Blade, Vera Bradley's CFO (and a fellow Butler Bulldog), about the Initial Public Offering, and how that has impacted the company so far. Last week, we met Melissa Schenkel and Susan Doctor from Marketing, for a rundown on branding and the use of media outlets for promotion.

Almost all of the interns – and yes, we did separate ourselves into groups of boys and girls.

Every summer the Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce also has a program called Live, Learn, and Intern. Designed to encourage young professionals to explore the city, this program gives people like me entertaining options in a place I don't know very well (since I'm not from the area). Best of all, it's free! So this week we went bowling at Indiana Tech, and as always, the Vera interns had a fabulous time.

Taking a break from the bowling action.

We also gathered for a casual, get-to-know-each-other dinner, which was definitely a success. We talked about work, our projects, our hometowns and, of course, the products we've been seeing that we'd love to have, and the previous weekend's events for the Foundation! Next up? There has been talk of a possible trip to Cedar Point, some TinCaps games and a lot of just hanging out at my apartment with my roommate (a fellow Vera intern). I'll be sure to share our adventures on Behind the Seams!

Dinner at Flat Top Grill.

Vera Bradley 101

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For the last three days, the other interns and I have been busy with New Hire Orientation, hosted each month by our Training Department. We met members of the various departments and visited the four Fort Wayne buildings. I never thought I would say that I loved touring a factory or that I enjoyed a presentation about IT, but this week I definitely did.

We started the week off at our Industrial Road office, where departments like Finance, Customer Service, and Direct and Indirect Sales are located. In addition to the tour and presentations, we also had the opportunity to observe some of the Customer Service representatives, whose product knowledge and dedication to the brand is so inspiring!

Industrial Road

Our next stop was Adams Center Road (ACR), where manufacturing takes place. We watched the team there quilt fabric, cut pieces for the bags, and sew and assemble the bags, which completely amazed me. Each of the bags coming from ACR is sewn by hand. Talk about talent.

It was a dream come true for me to see the huge bolts of fabric in all of my favorite colors. My mind was racing with ideas for things I could craft and make with them; the options are endless!

Next up, we traveled to Production Road, where I spend most of my time. Even though I am somewhat familiar with the departments here (Product Development, the Foundation, Marketing, and Visual Merchandising), I loved getting a more in depth look at what they do from the people who know best. The highlight by far was touring Product Development, where the magic happens. Thinking about how each pattern, bag, and collection is created from scratch in this building, where I work every day, reminds me that I truly hit the internship jackpot.

Production Road

Last but certainly not least, we visited Stonebridge, the distribution facility. This is where they store product, fill online orders and distribute merchandise to retailers. All of their systems are so efficient, and seeing how dedicated the company is to quality control and customer experience really reinforces the eight core values, and how they're applied each and every day.

Stonebridge

Unfortunately, there is one location that we did not get to visit ... Vera Bradley's New York office. While I'm sure they would love to take every new hire to The Big Apple to see their product development office, it just isn't possible. But hey, a girl can dream, right?

The view from the New York office - 5th Avenue and Central Park!