was listening to a really interesting thing on the radio the other day about how nowadays there is no need for people to be making things manually that a machine can do and that people should instead be doing work that they “enjoy” and let the machines do the shitty things. but people will keep buying “handmade” things because someone else’s suffering creates a more fulfilling product. hmm.
At the age of 72, Helen Keller learned what it means to jump.
She became friends with choreographer Martha Graham and began visiting her at her dance studio. Keller was fascinated by the dancers’ movements, feeling the vibrations of their footsteps as they moved across the floor. At one point, she asked Graham, “What is jumping?”
So Graham brought her up to the barre and placed her hands on the waist of one of the dancers, Merce Cunningham, and he jumped.
A joyful smile spread across Keller’s face; she started moving her fingers quickly to sign, “How wonderful! How like thought! How like the mind it is!”
You can see that joy on her face here as she joins in a dance with Graham’s company. Keller, who conveyed her thoughts through bodily motions and touch, creates art by joining in a community of movement, a communal expression of those soaring, effervescent thoughts.
I’d imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine. I couldn’t be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.
mysong5 