[NetBehaviour] stone bridges, QRRR and counter-Munich
Alan Sondheim
sondheim at panix.com
Tue Jul 26 21:52:16 CEST 2016
Yes! I agree, among everyone here.
On Tue, 26 Jul 2016, Ana Vald?s wrote:
> Dear Alan and dear Johannes and dear Ruth and Marc and so many others dear
> to me. Dear because we share a feeling of despair and frustration but we are
> stubborn enough to believe in beauty, in sharing, in creating...In the
> middle of the horrors of the Holocaust camps people created, in Rwanda poets
> found time and places to write, in Chile Victor Jara sang at the Stadium
> before they cut his hands. I truly belive as Albert Camus wrote once we are
> heroes. Not because we make heroic deeds but only for surviving and for
> coping with the small chores of everydays life.
> Ana
>
> On Tue, Jul 26, 2016 at 4:38 PM, Alan Sondheim <sondheim at panix.com> wrote:
>
>
> We go on because otherwise one's giving into fear, I'd say
> "just" giving into fear, and statistically and otherwise one is
> almost entirely safe, not however in Turkey or other countries
> where the singularity of the iron fist overshadows all. Turkey
> is turning into another hell; I don't think (and I'm speaking
> ignorantly) France for example is. The U.S. remains to be seen
> of course. But there are other natural disasters, and disasters
> the result of negligence or stupidity as well. And we can't
> forget that there are other moments of exaltation; otherwise one
> is living in a constant state of anger, anguish, depression -
> and that is unbelievably counter-productive; that's happening,
> it seems (according to the news) to be happening everywhere in
> the United States now, fury from the left and right
> simultaneously, and I fear fury as much as anything; there has
> to be another way. So the question is NOW - what is to be done?
> Should we accelerate the violence and rhetoric in a kind of
> incandescent accelerationism, or should we learn, even at this
> late stage, to listen to one another? (I admire the work of so
> many on this list who believe in, open up to, the commons where
> listening and activism, art and non-art, prevail.)
>
> - Alan
>
>
> On Tue, 26 Jul 2016, Johannes Birringer wrote:
>
>
> apologies. yes, it was loaded, and terror is a word
> I now dread to hear, day after day, and day after
> day, and I am sorry i linked something that you had
> sent us, Alan (not about the historical Johnstown
> incident, but about your poetic media work with the
> QRRR and the bridge), with a few lines that I had
> jotted down from a a Munich poet who recently died.
> I was trying to ask the question how we go on, what
> warns us to be fearful or to resist fearfulness for
> our lives (condemning, perhaps, others or seeking
> for culprits to blame), to believe in the kind of
> democracy we cling to or hope to live in if we are
> fortunate, and what do you do when the tide quickly
> or gradually turns. I write to friends in Turkey
> yesterday, who tell me artists and academics have
> now been forbidden to travel. Just imagine you are
> told, sorry, you can't lave the country. You climb
> on a train, and watch out to spot the aggressor who
> may have a backpack on their shoulders, with a bomb.
> You stand in line to a rock concert, and the person
> near you blows himself up. You go to a fastfood
> restaurant, some one pulls a gun and starts
> shooting. You dance in a disco, someone starts
> killing people on the dance floor. You walk on a
> promenade, somone drives over you in a huge truck.
> You attend a peaceful pro democracy rally, as folks
> did in Kabul, and then there is an explosion. I was
> asking for a counter narrative.
>
> regards
> Johannes Birringer
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: netbehaviour-bounces at netbehaviour.org
> [netbehaviour-bounces at netbehaviour.org] on behalf of
> Alan Sondheim [sondheim at panix.com]
> Sent: Monday, July 25, 2016 1:58 AM
> To: NetBehaviour for networked distributed
> creativity
> Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour] stone bridges, QRRR and
> counter-Munich
>
> "Terror" is already a loaded term and it effaces
> sometimes what one might
> want to reveal. We just have different attitudes
> here. And poverty wasn't
> the issue in Johnstown at the time. I apologize
> again, however; the
> discussion is too loaded for me as well.
>
> On Sun, 24 Jul 2016, Ana Vald?s wrote:
>
>
> Dear Alan I think life is inclusive and
> terror in Munich and what happened
> in Johnstown are not exclusive but
> includes each other. Poverty and to feel
> different are the mothers of the terror
> as well.
> Ana
>
>
> Den 24 jul 2016 21:41 skrev "Alan
> Sondheim" <sondheim at panix.com>:
>
> First -"Lone wolf" - from the WSJ
> - "The Phrase Lone Wolf Goes
> Back Centuries A phrase used to
> describe the culprit in the
> Sydney siege stretches centuries
> back to Native American chiefs,
> Kipling and Crane."
>
> I've heard it all my life.
>
> Second - The bridge and what
> happened at Johnstown is quite
> different - two books are David J.
> Beale, Through the Johnstown
> Flood, and David McCullough, The
> Johnstown Flood. As I
> mentioned, I think, a minimum of
> 2209 people died from drowning,
> the physical force of buildings
> bearing down upon them, and
> fire. The bridge was a retaining
> wall for debris, buildings,
> fire, people dead and alive, and
> animals dead and alive.
>
> It seems problematic to me -
> having been up and down in
> Johnstown, seeing the poverty
> there now, and so forth - to
> immediately have this slip into a
> dialog about the Olympics and
> the usual discussions on terror.
> Johnstown wasn't this; it was
> also very much about class
> differences, etc., but it was also
> about heroic efforts to save
> thousands and thousands of lives
> (which involved everything from
> creating hospitals from scratch
> to building railroad tracks in a
> very few days, etc.). It's not
> that I don't think the other
> issues and dialogs are important -
> they're absolutely critical - but
> the issues are not the same
> between the two.
>
> When I was in Johnstown with
> Azure, we walked to the damsite
> (where the dam gave way), where
> the Little Conemaugh River still
> flows - and for us and many people
> there, the issue is the vile
> pollution from mine runoff - which
> kills but slower - that's
> evident everywhere; the River ran
> bright orange, nothing lived
> in it at all, and it's part of the
> watershed.
>
> I apologize if I'm overstepping my
> bounds here, in the
> discussion; I just feel odd about
> the slippage into a discourse
> which seemed to me to efface what
> happened 5/31/1889 in
> Johnstown, what's happening there
> now as well.
>
> Alan
>
> On Sun, 24 Jul 2016, Johannes
> Birringer wrote:
>
>
> Dear Ana
>
> not wanting to engage in
> ideological fracturings
> here, to be honest; you must
> be refering to the
> passage that my friend from
> Houston had sent me in
> the reference to the Olympic
> Games of 1972, he
> spotted a sinister irony in
> the choice of the site;
> you will recall that the
> militant group 'Black
> September' , a palestinian
> organization, took
> responsibility for the
> hostage taking, there is
> little disputing that, and i
> had no intention of
> causing harm with labeling.
>
> I was more interested in the
> perversion of term lone
> wolf (which was a literary
> term i think, from
> Hesse's Steppenwolf). My
> friend from Texas also
> pondered the scene he found
> on the internet captured
> during the Munich shootings
> last Friday: "An
> extraordinary altercation
> took place between some
> individuals filming the
> Munich killer as he wandered
> around a roof car park which
> was empty. A fair
> amount of invective was
> directed from the group
> doing the filming at the
> killer below. His response
> to this was to repeat, "I am
> German." A strange
> response. There is perhaps
> no easy answer to the
> question, 'What did he
> mean?'"
>
> maybe you have an answer.
> regards
> jb
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From:
> netbehaviour-bounces at netbehaviour.org
>
> [netbehaviour-bounces at netbehaviour.org]
> on behalf of
> Ana Vald?s
> [agora158 at gmail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2016
> 9:11 PM
> To: NetBehaviour for
> networked distributed
> creativity
> Subject: Re: [NetBehaviour]
> stone bridges, QRRR and
> counter-Munich
>
> Johannes I am always moved
> by your words. You have
> such a touching way to paint
> with words:)
> When you use the words
> "Palestinian terrorists" I
> react. Because I has been in
> Palestine several times
> and the only terror I met
> was that exerced by the
> Israeli soldiers at the
> checkpoints making us run
> from their rubber bullets
> and from their gas
> grenades.
> And many of the old Israeli
> politicians, as Menachem
> Begin, Sharon and others
> were called terrorists by
> the English when they bombed
> the King David Hotel
> killing many civilians and
> when they killed the
> envoy from the United
> Nations Folke Bernadotte.
> You are born in a country
> who exerced terror over
> Europe and Africa killing
> civilians and executing
> Jews, homosexuals and
> dissidents. The English
> exerced terror over the
> Boers in South Africa and
> were the first creating
> concentration camps.
> The French called the time
> between 1791 and 1794 the
> Regime of the Terror when
> not only the French
> aristocracy but also the
> political dissidents paid
> with their life their
> dissent.
> My point is terror is such
> an ambiguous word and I
> think no one should label
> others with it since
> terror seems to be inherent
> to all people and to all
> cultures.
>
> Ana
>
> On Sun, Jul 24, 2016 at 1:56
> PM, Johannes Birringer
>
> <Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk<mailto:Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk>>
> wrote:
>
>
> Receiving a note from Alan
> Sondheim, on the road, he
> mentions a stone bridge
> where he
> created a piece "changing
> the bridge lighting to
> produce,
> sequentially, and on
> different lighting
> levels/apparatus, SOS, QRRR,
> and
> MAYDAY (QRRR is an old radio
> code for
> warning/danger/disaster);
> this
> alternative with flame-light
> images on the bridge
> side (invisible from the
> trains that run above it)
> representing burning
> crushed buildings and
> people....."
>
> i am not sure why I think of
> the bridge, but a
> friend from Texas, after I
> told him
> about the chaos in Europe,
> the shootings, the
> terror, the military
> putsches, purges,
> and the new security
> measures, the increasingly
> heated debates on refugees
> and migration, Islamism,
> fascism, and violence,
> well, he noted that the
> shootings
> in Munich took place on the
> site of the former
> Olympic Park.
>
> The Olympia shopping centre
> is a two-tiered
> glass-covered mall that was
> built on the site of the
> 1972 Olympics.
> The Munich Games were
> overshadowed by a terrorist
> attack in which 11 Israeli
> sportsmen and a German
> policeman were
> killed after being taken
> hostage by Palestinian
> terrorists.
>
> Now we hear that the
> shooting last Friday was by a
> young "lone wolf" (and what
> exactly do they mean by
> lone wolf).
>
>
>
> A Munich-based poet, the
> late Paul W?hr, once wrote
> about Die Wirklichkeit unter
> Beschuss (reality under
> shooting attack)
>
> alles ist doch in Ordnung /
> es geht weiter /
> ich glaube /
> ich glaube es geht weiter /
> ja des glaub ich schon.
>
>
> (translated)
>
> everything's all right, no?
> /
> life goes on /
> I believe /
> I believe life goes on /
> yeah, I believe so /
>
>
>
> that short QRRR, I tend to
> think, was meant as
> W?hr's satirical comment on
> "weltfromme
> Bekenntnisformeln" , pious
> liturgies that we tell
> ourselves, as we must repeat
> them and murmur them in
> the face of the all the
> constant flare ups.
>
>
>
> Johannes Birringer
> c/o Interaktionslabor
> G?ttelborn
>
>
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