Arts

The Arts section of Orient Lodge

Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Recap, Part 1

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 08/08/2016 - 06:37

I am home where Falcon Ridge meets the confluence of other rivers in my life. My notebook and mind full of thoughts to organize and post in my blog. Snippets of songs play in my head. Patty Larkin sings, “I read the Bible everyday, Trying to keep the demons at bay”. Brother Sun sings “St. Christopher protect us from the cold and stormy sea”. All of this is followed by “St. Anthony Lost and Found” sung by Gina Forsyth.

Soon, I will post more; poems that I wrote, reflections on various performances, and whatever else comes to mind, but first, I need to get back to my day job. I need to fit all of this into the greater journey; poetry group on Tuesday, an important meeting on Wednesday.

As I prepare for my daily get ready for work shower, different from that wonderful first, home from Falcon Ridge shower, I think, twenty-four hours ago, I was sitting on a hill talking with my neighbors and best friends for the weekend, preparing to put out the tarp I would sit upon for the rest of the day. I think of the song we all stand on the hill together and sing, as we head back home, “never turning back”.

Ticket sales for next year’s Falcon Ridge go on sale in February.

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Music

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Facebook Politics, Bobolinks, and Grace

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 07/28/2016 - 06:08

I pause from my studies
of the Dark Night of the Soul
and find a friend
has posted,
“Sorry I’m not on Facebook
much right now,
I need to do things
that don’t fill me
with anger and despair.”

So I shared with her
a picture of a bobolink
and a poem
of how the prairie smells
after a summer rain
and thought about
this week’s lesson.

“One's life does not consist
in the abundance of possessions”
despite what the commercials say.
The politicians’ promise
leads to
“anger, wrath, malice, slander,
and abusive language“
For them, there are still
“slave and free”,
those who help them gain riches
and others who obstruct them.

My friend writes,
“Sorry I’m not on Facebook
much right now,
I need to do things
that don’t fill me
with anger and despair.”

“But you are needed”,
I tell her
to remind all of us
“The Moon Cannot be Stolen”.

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#CLMOOC - Found PLN

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 07/24/2016 - 20:22

”Sometimes,
the voice of the world”
is an
”Epic Night! Featuring Rufus Wainwright + 1500 Singers [who] sing HALLELUJAH!”
and being
a LIVE node on the network
as we Reciprocate with Gratitude and Generosity.

From Jacques du Toit,
via Aaron Davis,
I discover my Personal learning network
something I didn’t even know I had,
something I grow and nuture
through CLMooc.

What if
each of us reached out to a few (five?) unconnected nodes and connected up with them,
perhaps through poem, song, or
Escargot Mail (Without the Garlic)?

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Vacation, #CLMOOC, #PokemonGo, #TinyHouses and more...

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 07/15/2016 - 17:06

When I get busy, I typically leave windows open on my computer; webpages I want to bookmark or write about, documents I haven’t finished and will save later. Ongoing conversations in instant messenger programs, and so on. Eventually, it gets to the point where I just have to close out everything I’m working. Sometimes it is because things stop working. Sometimes it is simply because I need to tie things up. Today, it was a little bit of both.

I am starting vacation and I want to have as clean a slate as possible. There was a lot to close out, because it has been a particularly challenging week, mostly because of #CLMOOC starting and because of Pokemon Go.

I’ve saved all kinds of thoughts and links in various documents, and some of this needs to come together into a blog post. First #CLMOOC

The starting point for CLMOOC is this page. It isn’t too late to join in. One way of joining in is to simply jump in. CLMOOC is divided into Make Cycles. The first Make Cycle is around getting to know one another. Make Cycle #1: Make with Me: Who Are We?

An important part of CLMooc is the connections, reusing and mashing up content. Some of the posts that jumped out at me, not in any particular order, included Ronald Rudolf’s variation on Jennifer’s Poem, RON LEUNISSEN’s reuse of art-cards, Jeffrey Keefer mind map in Who Am I? A CLMOOC UnIntroduction (which inspired some of my writing this past week), Sarah Honeychurch’s Who am I this month? and Deanna Mascle’s<./a> Notable Notes: Exploring Identity with/in #CLMOOC. For those exploring mapping, Deanna’s post points to one of Jeffrey Keefer’s post, one of my posts, and several others. I also want to highlight Kevin Hodgson’s poem about vocal harmony in a world of so much disharmony in the world around us.

Deanna’s comments about my post hit on another big topic for me this week, Pokemon. She provided a link to two great articles, 14 reasons #PokemonGO has a future in education; or, Why #PokemonGO deserves the thoughtful, creative, attention of schools and teachers and Pokémon Go Has Created a New Kind of Flâneur

Another really important article, I thought, was Ezra Klein’s Pokémon Go isn’t a fad. It’s a beginning.

Meanwhile, at work, we’ve been talking a lot about Pokemon. In a blog post, Pokémon Go: In, Near, and Around the Health Center, in Mark Masselli’s LinkedIn post, Pokémon Go and Community Health, in a Facebook Album, Pokemon GO at CHC, and in various news articles: PokeMon at CHC New Britain and
Pokemon Go gaming craze has players getting outside to find Pikachu.

So now, I’m heading off to vacation. I’ll see what is available for Pokemon on Cape Cod. I’ll stop at the 2nd BIG Tiny House Festival in Concord, MA on the way, and hopefully, I will get time to read, relax, and maybe even get more writing done.

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