Ode to C…

I hope to write a proper review of Annette Vee’s ‘Coding Literacy’ book (below) soon. It is among a raft of books I read again in an attempt to garner the current state of contemporary literary practice but more specifically the teaching of contemporary creative writing practices across the globe in the context of our current technological milieu.

book discussing the evolution of the literary in our technologically enabled world.

Obviously there are not many Irish Writers of ‘Digital Literature’ nor numerous creative writers who eschew print, the print establishment or it’s feeder network of educational institutions in Ireland.

Ireland is still a relatively small place with 5.1 Million people (in the republic) and merely 7 Million on the Island as a whole (N.I. has 1.9 million). To put that in context there are 55 cities in the world with a larger population than our entire island landmass, so when we consider the impact of Irish writers worldwide it is quite remarkable that we still enjoy such a positive reputation for being poets, novelists, masters of language and spinners of yarns.

Perhaps because of our acknowledged ‘soft power‘ and our legacy of waves of emigration, past associations with missionaries, generation after generation of poor Irish people travelling across the world and bringing aspects of their culture with them, we have spread the stories of our little home. A home that has since become a lot more technologically sophisticated.

In recent decades the Irish Development Authority (IDA) have done a magnificent job marketing our country abroad to attract further technology companies to set up EMEA headquarters here. All major tech companies are here in one guise or another and there is genuine FOMO if you don’t have an Irish Office. Since the british car crash that is Brexit Ireland is now also the sole English speaking gateway to Europe for other western nations.

Two major currents are flowing here right now, high levels of both traditional and digital literacy. The latest wave of innovation to hit the tech sector here is focused on A.I. and various alternative reality, and Web3 technologies, specifically DLT and blockchain.

I wrote a short essay on medium called ‘Why A.I. Write’ about some intersections, specifically with regard to creative writing and A.I. If you do have about twenty minutes read it (or have it read by pressing the listen button there), then please leave a comment either below or over on medium.

I am currently writing a longer work that also examines some of the poetic aspects of Coding C, C++ and C#. As with the post title here I am planning to call that work: Ode to C.

Documentary Review: The Road to Vrindavan

Entertaining while ‘engendering’ a vital debate about education.

The time limited link to watch this documentary is here:

Previous portrayals of the poor, street, and slum, life of places like Bombay as depicted in Shantaram, the 2003 novel by Gregory David Roberts, and perhaps like the novel itself, first appeared as an illuminating western perspective until it became quite obviously incredulous and lacking genuine context, even for fiction. The welfare of India’s poorest young girls is a topic the west and east have little discussed but still mostly disagreed upon.

This was most notable perhaps when the late polemicist Christopher Hitchens published his book “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice” in which Hitch criticized her efforts to alleviate the suffering of Calcutta’s poor and claimed, outside his assessment of her character, that those efforts since based in religious dogma and motives, ensured that the wretched situation there was actually compounded by such interference. Hitch went on to explain that the one thing that has positively changed life outcomes for poor young women is ensuring that they have sovereignty over their own bodies. The long and arduous route to that societal shift in the subcontinent of India must obviously traverse education.

A snatched still from a single moment of the journey in the documentary.

The Road to Vrindavan begins with its creator Ravi Chambers understanding that immersing himself in even the planning of the central arduous journey at the centre of the film may somehow echo his previous unintended exclusion of those most dear and closest to him, as he acknowledges the effects on others of his other journey to Vrindavan as a Hare Krsna monk twenty years previously.

Jeff Gomez has in recent years articulated the shift from Campbell’s heroic journey to concepts around shared storytelling, the collaborative creation of story universes to inclusive, transmedia, and an expansive equality inspired ‘collective journey’ this very personal documentary film by necessity requires a sort of simpler immersion in the individual threads of our collective imagination.

Interviewees along Ravi’s fund raising and fact finding journey introduce terms like ‘significant importance’ and ‘authentic’ with respect to Indian Culture, Indian Tradition, and the defined roles assigned to men and women in their society. Ravi conducts his interviews with a forthright sensitivity and perhaps because of the subject matter, the obvious emotional, intellectual, physical, and maybe spiritual investments he’s making in this documentary this ensures it becomes a rich tapestry of all these elements, from the natural splendour of the countryside to the sprawling human hubbub of various urban spaces, to fresh faces of young girls each of whom has her own individual special story, the vibrancy of colour, the texture of personality and ultimately the exploration of possibility.

Just as with the ideas within it, the film itself expands its intellectual, theoretical, and ultimately sociological breath to broaden the question beyond simply the education of young girls, it does so without ever resorting to becoming academic or abstract, issues with inheriting the wisdom within tradition, societal evolution without inherently damaged historicity swamping progress, become developing backdrops to the imperative questioning at the centre of the documentary.

Here I must confess my personal connection to this story as I am a long time family friend of Ravi’s parents, but this story while about cultural, societal, gender, community, and broader questions, is ultimately about these personal stories, and the relationships between them, it is about men and women, parents and their children, what is acceptable to us as individuals and as parts of our communities, what are our responsibilities to each?

The Road to Vrindavan is a timely and very well produced reminder about individual and collective bravery, gender roles, rights, and gender sensitization at a time when violence against women is on the National agenda in India. Unlike that book Shantaram, the truth and authenticity of ‘The Road to Vrindavan’ increase as the documentary itself evolves, ‘be inspired films’ has delivered a film really worth watching and certainly a documentary very much worth discussing. Go watch it and Enjoy…

Nobody Knows Anything ? Imagine that ‘homo humbleless..

William Goldman famously informed Hollywood of this fact in his autobiographical guide to the movie business “Adventures in the Screen Trade“. Every writer is aware of that fact even if it serves only as an emotional rejection safety net. Scientists know this also…

First line Quote from Bantam Books edition 1988..

which is perhaps why there is such emphasis on reproducibility of results when it comes to theories, theorems, where proofs are essential for truth. The need to know is the need to have proof. I have proven, on many occasions that knowing a lot, however large that specific lot may initially seem to some, even relative to other smaller lots, is still infinitesimal if not entirely negligible when compared to what might be known. This being just one true reason why I’m often surprised and shocked at the lack of genuine humility shown by ‘homo humbleless’ i.e. certain academics, writers, business people, and artists. Human ego certainly appears to be one of the most destructive and unforgiving forces on our planet, fueled with these little pools of individual knowledge it’s an utter disaster for those unfortunate to encounter them.

“A Little Knowledge Is A Dangerous Thing”

Alexander Pope.. An essay on criticism..

As children our imagination and curiosity drive us to discover more about the world, in my own case it was taking all sorts of things apart, making stages, sets, and theaters from cardboard boxes, using such bits and pieces to create shows and epic linoleum kitchen floor performances for the captive audience of two older grandaunts and a very proud mother. When we grow up so many of us lose that ability to openly experiment in a non self aware way. Our society, despite what social media tries to say, does not suffer such fools gladly, and often being foolish is a true route to creative discovery and imagination.

When someone tells us new truths old books contain, that childish sagacity we once possessed can be driven from us by such convention.

‘Imagination is more powerful than knowledge’ is a quote attributed to Einstein, in my own limited view imagination is an under investigated human phenomenon, some years ago I read Anne Balsamo’s Designing Culture: the technological imagination at work, my own wip print book could quite easily be sub tilted / log lined as ‘the technical imagination at play’.

The difficulty with reaching an end with life long formal education, having experienced it’s primary versions reject me in my earlier life, is the actual perceived worth and value of that formal, formalized and institutional variety of education, learning by earning (or paying for) bits of exclusive institutional paper loses it’s sheen and relevance, particularly when so many of it’s corporatized advocates themselves belong to ‘homo humbleless.’

I lost my thinking, writing out loud (Louth) space when my old website was wiped, I am only reviving my mechanism of public meandering and web rumination. I am looking forward to getting back to making some art, digital art and all sorts of stuff I can only imagine.