DARTING: A Collective Story Map

Over a period of five weeks a collective of writers of the River Dart worked collaboratively on a web-based writing project about the River Dart and the history - fictional or otherwise - of Dartington Hall. A series of short texts were written separately, for zines, postcards and blog posts. These texts were then collected, found texts and images were added, and all were collated onto this Google Map:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=109811778856642161490.00046c5ac479d9ec8655d&ll=50.443513,-3.841095&spn=0.381311,1.234589&t=h&z=10

Buckfastleigh Never Struck Me as a Fast Paced Place

Dartington in South Devon on a great bend of the river Dart is situated not far from Totnes along the main road from Buckfastly. 

(http://www.information-britain.co.uk/county28/townguideDartington/)

Darting Stories Remix

Over the past few weeks first year Performance Writing Students at Dartington have generated a number of short texts for zines, postcards, and web maps, on themes including place, mapping, the River Dart, and the past occupants (fictional or otherwise) of Dartington Hall. Most of those texts are archived on the Darting Blog, and are presented as a collective story map on Google Maps: Darting Map

In the last session of our workshop we looked at remixing. In that spirit, over the past week I took sentences from the students' blog post and fed them into one of Nick Montfort's Python story generators. To download and run Nick's original 1k story generators in a terminal window, visit: http://grandtextauto.org/2008/11/30/three-1k-story-generators/ [I had used this same method earlier in the year to create Excerpts from the Chronicles of Pookie and JR]

For the purposes of this Darting Stories Remix I have shortened some of the sentences or selected excerpts from longer sentences to fit into the story generator format, and changed them all into the present tense and first person. Otherwise, these sentences are all written separately by separate authors to make collective stories.

To read Darting Stories, download this file to your desktop and unzip: Darting.py On a Mac or Linux system, you can run the story generator either by just double-clicking on it, or, if that doesn't work, but opening a terminal Window, typing "cd Desktop", and typing "python Darting.py". The generator runs on Windows, too, but you will probably need to install Python first: version 2.6. Once Python is installed you can double click on the file and it will automatically launch and run in the terminal window. Every time you press Return a new version of the story will appear.



Here are a few examples:

Darting Stories:
How do I write an epitaph about myself in the first person?.
Through the depths of the water I reflect far and wide.
Hadrian's Wall might have mostly come down, but it's there in spirit.
Mad, that's what they call me.
I crave little more than my freedom, my air, and my land.
I will walk directionless, till the unknown end.
Striving to connect with something natural.
To be continued...

Darting Stories:
At the start, I look for the lights.
What do names matter when worlds whirl together?.
I don't live in a house, where they could watch me.
I live along the Dart but not around the towns where they patrol.
I pass out in the dirt-floored cellar most nights.
Sunlight barely reaches the stone floor.
I am a fervent keeper of horses, ponies and barns.
Websta's brother died in the Dart. Had his throat slit.
The sea is a place I understand is rather nice.
Introvert, extravert, ingreen.
This the most achingly beautiful place to come across a little death.
To be continued...

Darting Stories:
Stories run off the Moor with it's river waters.
I stride up hill holding hands with a friend named for the greatest flower.
William, sweet or otherwise, has never been my name.
I scare their dogs by trying to speak with them in their own language.
Graceless truths of tears clutch at the mirage in my room.
The ponies look more listless and less majestic.
It gets so muddy here; no wonder all the cows around here are brown.
The wind gives the landscape something of a facial peel.
Splash water into mud, trip me.
Smouldering timber and melancholy permeate my lungs. I stick to the path.
This the most achingly beautiful place to come across a little death.
To be continued...

Darting Stories:
On this hill the world as we know it collided.
Intoxicating tongues speak of Giants, Merlins, Padfoots and Beasts.
Geoffrey of Monmouth's accounts are unfounded, possibly fabricated.
The clay on the wheel beneath my fingers, whirling a world on its axis.
William, sweet or otherwise, has never been my name.
I crave little more than my freedom, my air, and my land.
I don't live in a house, where they could watch me.
I live along the Dart but not around the towns where they patrol.
I will walk directionless, till the unknown end.
I am a fervent keeper of horses, ponies and barns.
To be continued...

Darting Stories:
Stories run off the Moor with it's river waters.
I will walk directionless, till the unknown end.
Fear and bliss live with me and the room contains me.
Websta's brother died in the Dart. Had his throat slit.
Black looms in the distance, the air thick with distaste.
The Waters of the Dart run across stones fallen from foreign clouds.
Map the most important places around the River Dart.
Exmoor, outmore, out the door, more doors.
More floor, less flaws, less cause, pour, pore, sweat, regret.
Skip over Kandinsky pavement, follow the water.
Flotsam on a tidal river is a strange mixture of oak leaves and seaweed.
To be continued...

(sorry it's a little late, finally managed to get onto a computer that likes the internet!)

David, the dog trainer.

Respect, he said
Take the lead and walk with them.
Share it. Just walk with them
and they’ll know what to do.

Correct them first, at home, he said.
Tell them what you want to do,
They’ll gladly follow you.
Just walk, they’ll follow you.

We’re all the same, he said.
Boys and girls and dogs, and the rest.
We all just want respect, he said.
Just walk, they’ll follow you.

My father taught me this, along with the dogs. I think it sums it all up, and I had something to live by.
Think of his words to remember me.

Could someone explain what the Stein remixing is all about please? I'll probably be on the computer during most of your lecture on wedensday. thankyou!

Darting Story Cartographer Zines at the Arnolfini in Bristol

First year Performance Writing students at Dartington have been working to create a collective story map of the area around Dartington. Their first assignment was to produce a single sheet cut and fold zine:

The map may be hand drawn, photocopied, scanned or downloaded; the map may be realistic, statistical, abstract and/or wildly inaccurate, so long as it refers to the real River Dart. The zine must have a title and must contain five complete sentences, each of which must refer to a specific point on the Dart. The zine may contain any number of images.

Zines produced in response to that first assignment were on display in the bookshop at the Arnolfini in Bristol Saturday, December 5, 2009, along with zines by J.R. Carpenter. For more information, visit the event listing on the Arnolfini webiste: Performance Writing: JR Carpenter

Images of the zines showcased in the Arnolfini Bookshop:

John T. Bones

The highly disliked bar-keep of the White Hart, from 1768 until his not-so-untimely death in 1774. He enjoyed drinking ale, fighting with punters, and raping the bar-maid. A most unpleasant fellow, he spent most hours of each day getting rip-roaring drunk before opening to the public in mid-afternoon. He made the air more malodorous than that of your usual 18th century watering hole, due to the fact that he was passed out in the dirt-floored cellar most nights. This was where he met his blood-soaked end, by a pewter tankard in the hands of his most unfortunate, violated barmaid, Marianna.

Stein Remixed

There is feeling. Circling feeling. Reddening feeling. Feeling is mounting, circling. Feeling without meaning, always. Recurrence of feeling. Recognition, but no resognation, and in the evening no resting. And always entirely mistaken. Always feeling. Always circling. Always feeling.

Final Assignment - Collective Map

For the final assignment, add your zine sentences, postcard stories (with postcard images) and epitaphs to this map:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=109811778856642161490.00046c5ac479d9ec8655d

You may add more stories, if you have them. Add at least one short "found" paragraph that describes this place in a way you disagree with, or know to be untrue. Include source. One place to look: Totness/Dartington Site History http://www.devonperspectives.co.uk/index.html

Write a short blurb about the project to use in an email announcement of the project.

"If you move around all your life, you can't find where you come from on a map. All those places where you lived are just that: places. You don't come from any of them; you come from a series of events. And those are mapped in memory. Contingent, precarious events, without the counterpane of place to muffle the knowledge of how unlikely we are. Almost not born at every turn. Without a place, events slow-tumbling through time become your roots. Stories shading into one another. You come from a plane crash. From a war that brought your parents together."
Anne-Marie MacDonald, As The Crow Flies, Toronto: Knopf, 2003, page 36.

June - The girl

Beside church bricks, sheltered, the silence prevails...............Nothingness. I spent my days in one room, the ceiling so low that sunlight could barely reach the stone floor, and instead my cheeks grew aflame by the light of the blazing fire. Intense feeling, both fear and bliss lived within me and the room contained me. It is where I first saw my love, slightly blurred through the small kitchen window. Yet that environment, so hot, so busy, bred inside my lungs sickness and age. The room so hidden, became a dungeon and I stood in its depths searching for breath....I never saw that room again, I never again placed my feet its stone flooring or felt the powerful heat of the burning fire and I never again saw my love, slightly blurred through the small kitchen window.

Brief Stein Remix

Inside, feeling seeping from the ceiling, and through the curtains, and through all the curtains, in the evening, feeling is seeping, all the reddening curtains bleeding, the curtains bleeding, in the evening. And in the morning, there is pinching.

Stein remix

In the curtains, and the yellow bed linen, there is a reddening sand. Inside the evening steamers and outside the pinching standards there is resting resignation. All this has meaning. 

Stein's badass remix

Anything reddening, this makes curtains.

The circle is recurrence, recognition is resignation.

Evening standards is mistaken morning.

Resting bed is yellow outside.

Meaning is sleeping.

Feeling is the sand inside.

Stein Remix

You're entirely mistaken. I wish I was sleeping. The morning gives no feeling, and the evening's lost all meaning. I am feeling the recurrence, recognition of resignation. There are no curtains, and stop reminding me of bed. Outside, go that way a bit, walk in circles, the sand is red.

remixed

Inside there is a reddening, in the outside there is sand. In the morning there is evening, in the meaning there is feeling. In the evening there is feeling. In feeling anything is feeling in resting. Anything is feeling mounting in resting and feeling in resignation, in resignation there is feeling, feeling recurrence is feeling twice or more.

Stein Remix

in the inside there
in the outside there
in the morning there
in the evening there
In the evening there is feeling.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain feeling anything
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain feeling
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain feeling there
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain feeling there is
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain feeling there is recurrence and entirely mistaken
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaathere is pinching.

and all the standards have steamers
and all the curtains have
and all the yellow have
and all the circle have

This makes sand.

The colourboy

And the colourboy was broken. The heaviest of life's storms disfigured the horizon. Black loomed in the distance, the air thick with distaste. And up the hill he did stride holding hands with a friend whose name was that of the greatest flower. And beyond the tops of the trees he attempted practice with tuition, and suffered a change. Timeless he bonded visions, graceless truths of tears clutched at the mirage in his room. Pixelated sights danced to euphoric sounds. Dirty at Christmas the colourboy calmed and left for home but just before he did sultry wonder what miracle would tempt him from his devil. The colourboy watched grey sharpen its shade and the bruise of this tone absorbed him as he passed.

Gertrude Stein Remix Session

Original Gertrude Stein quotation:

"In the inside there is sleeping, in the outside there is reddening, in the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling. In the evening there is feeling. In feeling anything is resting, in feeling, anything is mounting, in feeling there is resignation, in feeling there is recognition, in feeling there is recurrence and entirely mistaken there is pinching. All the standards have steamers and all the curtains have bed linen and all the yellow has discrimination and all the circle has circling. This makes sand."

Miller, Paul D., aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid, Rhythm Science, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. CD Track 05: DJ Wally Zeta Reticulli mixed with Gertrude Stein If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso

Gertrude Stein, "If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso (1923)," in Picasso: The Complete Writings, Boston: Beacon Press, 1970

J. R. Carpenter YouTube Video - A Vocabulary of Thinking, typing an excerpt from Gertrude Stein, How to Write

"Writing may be made between the ear and the eye and the ear and the eye the eye will be well and the ear will be well."

Gertrude Stein, How To Write, 1931.

See also, Tributaries & Text-Fed Streams post: YouTube Poetry

Arrow Lola Rocket Bam Bam Balooba Kennedy

Here William, they called when they wanted me to heel, to guard, to thrush, to hunt. Sweet William, they called me when I sat pretty by the fire or curled at night at the foot of the bed, my body warm at their feet. More often than not I came when called, though William, sweet or otherwise, was never my name. Lola, the cook’s child, took me for walks along the river. Kennedy, the horseman, saved me bird hearts and other victuals. And Arrow! That’s what the wind called me, when I ran fast as a rocket. Arrow Lola Rocket Bam Bam Balooba Kennedy, that was my true name.

Ruari Thomas

My memories always seem to start with hills. The hills of home changed, and it was a fair enough replacement. I didn’t even know they had hills in England ‘till Ma moved us there. She kept the house, and it became my home. Before long, I kept the garden. It was always my home. There was no other way for a boy to occupy his time, while still keeping out of trouble. I craved little more than my freedom, my air, and my land, and I could borrow them all amongst the roses. Along with the girl in the window.

Thomas Lyndon

Dreams of becoming a professional singer (it was jazz I loved, though pop- if it was about the music and not the sex- would also have been fantastic) were swatted and binned pretty swiftly by my parents during adolescence. Later, when my bus was empty I would sing loudly to old classics and cry on the dashboard. I loved the sky, but I never saw it, only road. Lost weight from lack of food saving enough driver wages to see Kate Bush play at Southampton; because ‘Cloudbusting’ reminded me of dead Lily. But she didn’t play it.

Edward Castle

Yes, it was painful. But it had to be done. It was the only thing I could do. Gardening was my whole life. Without it there was nothing left for me. I couldn’t watch other people at work in my garden. I had spent my whole life making it look like this. I did, of course, have my favourite part of the garden, that’s where I wanted it to happen. You all know why now though, why I had to do it. How can you be a gardener without your hands? What a pointless existence that would be.

Nameless Mad Tramp

Mad, that’s what they called me.

Mad because I didn’t live in a house where they could watch me.

Mad because I drank river water instead of the fluoride-laced tap water they give you.

Mad because I lived along the Dart but never around the towns where they patrolled.

Mad because I scared their children when I tried to open their eyes.

Mad because I scared their dogs by trying to speak with them in their own language.

Mad because I scared their cars by opening the doors to check they weren’t bugged.

Mad because I scared their policemen by waving that knife so they couldn’t catch me.

Mad because I’d rather leap off that bridge than let them take me away for the experiments and brainwashing.

James Wells

Please do not weep as you remember me,
For my last moment was full of glee.
Whilst polishing the wooden door,
I found a crack through which I saw
A treasure so rare for a man of my class;
A flexible woman with a bare naked ass.
Excitement erupting, trousers on the floor,
And she kept on dancing showing me more.
My pace quickened, I was ready to blow,
But a pain in my chest had started to grow.
My juices flowed as I fell to the ground,
But during my death not once did I frown.