[FRIAM] chicken-egg::gumflap-talk

[Steve Smith]

Yet another thread where I have to clamp down hard (or loosen up and try
to empathize with 12 or more distinctly different members of the
"audience" here) to avoid what Glen has referred to as my tendency
toward "dookey in the fan".   What apparently looks like an
undisciplined free-associative "flying off in all directions at once"
*feels like* a natural response to such a fertile and fecund environment
as the extended collective this mail list taps into.   Put that in your
empathy pipe and smoke it! (metaphorically).   This post (upon
re-reading) feels more self-referential than most... but that could be
an ill/delusion?

Dave's post and Marcus' response here makes me think of the Aboriginal
Songlines which are the collective knowledge of a people spread over an
entire continent with a diversity of spoken languages (and none written)
of the geography or probably more relevant
spiritual/social/bio-geography of that continent.   It was (is?)
maintained in the strong sense, by world of mouth reciting of a "song"
which must adapt to changing conditions.  If a landmark tree dies or a
river changes course, the song will change with those who are reciting
it as they are simultaneously using it for "wayfinding".   Naturally no
individual holds every songline in their repertoire, and at any given
moment there is a plethora of variations of any given songline. 
Songlines can be split and joined just as journeys across a landscape
can be.   They *attempt* to be a useful map/model of the real world.  
They are a serialization of experience.    I suppose that if two or more
individuals are present while a "songline" is being taught (say to a
young person), their versions of the songline may differ.   They may
have learned it differently and they may have also experienced it
differently.  I don't know if it is "allowed" to try to teach a songline
to another if you have not "used" it at least once, to avoid
transcription errors.

Practical knowledge about the world (Oral traditions, etc.) seems to fit
this model, if not quite as obviously formally.   The childrens rhyme
"ring around the rosey" is reputed to carry some practical knowledge
about the plague.   Presumably if it had remained a "live" story, it
might have morphed and adjusted enough to have been helpful to parents
and children around smallpox or measles in the 20th century?

Scientific training has a strong parallel?   Classroom study being  a
bit like learning to recite a songline, and lab work a bit like "walking
the talk" and new discoveries ranging from correcting a misphrase or
accomodating a nuanced change in the environment or adding a side-jaunt
up a different canyon to a never-before (or not in this songline)
explicated bit of territory?

And THIS song(line) I am reciting here seems to be like a deliberate
"cross-fertilizatoin of songlines".   And isn't that what we do here a
LOT?   Or is it (as Jon recently implied?) just a lot of Bombast?

what a tangled web of dookey...

 - Steve

On 6/8/20 9:55 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> Dave writes:
>
> < Audience responses had a profound effect on the telling of the story, guiding the narrator in different directions, even to alternative endings for the story. Basso argues that the immediate needs of the community were reflected in the responses, guiding the story in directions such that the telling of the story in that place and time for that audience achieved a desired goal, e.g. motivating the community towards some action, increasing communal solidarity, providing assurance in a moment of adversity, etc. >
>
> Glen and I had a colleague once that never created slide decks.   He said he wanted to see where the audience went and he couldn't do that with a static deck.   He would use transparencies and a felt-tip pen.   And here I thought he was just too lazy to make one.   There is just no substitute for a total lack of preparation.   :-) 
>
> Marcus
>
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