Kubla Khan

What were the other two places besides Xanadu and Alachua,  that Coleridge based Kubla Khan on, Greg?

 

 

Participation

 

On Feb 24, 2008, at 10:15 AM, Gregory Ulmer wrote:

Hi Craig

Thanks for setting up this venue.  We talked a while back about making our process part of the story (hopefully not the whole story), to disseminate the principle of E for a new consultancy.  The idea is to demonstrate how the Internet and related tools (databases for eg) support not just collaboration but integration of knowledge.  To be tested is the capacity of a blog to assemble through juxtaposition different modes of knowledge.  Will this juxtaposition create emergent effects of insight?  To find out, of course, we will have to participate.

E

Greg

Xanadu

 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree :

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran…

Google Map of Xanadu, Inner Mongolia, China.

 

…Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean…

Google Map of Santa Fe River, Alachua County, Florida.

 

… in front, just under my feet, was the enchanting and amazing crystal fountain which incessantly threw up from dark rocky caverns below, tons of water every minute, forming a basin, capacious enough for large shallops to ride in, and a creek of four or five feet depth of water and near twenty yards over, which meanders six miles through green meadows, pouring its limpid waters into the great Lake George.

.

Google Map of Salt Springs, Florida.

 

… directly opposite to the mouth or outlet of the creek, is a continual and amazing ebullition where the waters are thrown up in such abundance and amazing force, as to jet and swell up two or three feet above the common surface: white sand and small particles of shells are thrown up with the waters near to the top, … The ebullition is astonishing and continual, though its greatest force of fury intermits, regularly, for the space of thiry seconds of time: … 

 

William Bartram (1739-1823) record of his travels to America, Travels, published 1792. 

Re: meeting

 

On Feb 23, 2008, at 9:41 AM, Gregory Ulmer wrote:

A useful meeting the other day.  We now have a specific plan.  The focus for our creation of the prototype collaboration device is our immediate area, think global, act local.  If our peers apply the model to their own backyards, the result will be a distributed collective insight (potentially).

 

A further motivation for this choice:  we are one of the four sites Coleridge used to create his image of Xanadu in Kubla Khan, based on his reading of Bartram’s travels.  This connection with history and literature provides a hook that could garner media attention.  ”Pleasure Dome Doomed!” or “Xanadu Now Xanadon’t” (Xanadu Not?  Xanadone?)

 

I will compose a framing vision statement, and pass that along to you for further development.  Kim demonstrated an excellent grasp of the relevant water districts etc. Howard has the tools area.

 

Howard and Kim plan to meet during spring break, for Howard to get some ideas about how to put design knowledge into a web ontology.

–Related items from the Gainesville Sun

1)  Did you  see the “quotable” the other day from Salma Hayek?  Declaring her fears about her daughter’s coming world:  ”I get a bigger fear of what kind of world she’s going to live in.  Is she going to run out of water?” etc.

 2) The book recommended for the common reading program for incoming freshmen for this coming year is __When the Rivers Run Dry__.  You may recall that I recommended this book to E as a point of departure for understanding the water crisis in general.  Perhaps we should all read it and have a discussion?  It at least suggests that the window of opportunity for our endeavor is open (timing).

E

Greg

Welcome Group E

Hello Group E, I have registered http://groupeblog.wordpress.com for us to blog important research material and discussion. The flickr and de.licio.us tags are groupeblog.