Search results for 'tag:Whom tag:Metaphors' matching tags 'Whom' and 'Metaphors'

Re: I need Help with this, plz!

Feebs11 — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 01:12:13 GMT

Ta.qUe.Ri.a wrote:
(We have pictures of you so-called mooners. And just because the pictures aren't of your faces doesn't mean we can't identify youâ¦) Eve Arden in Grease. See here for a group of mooners : http://tinyurl.com/ynk8jm

The enemy is the downturn in business a downturn in business is when sales / income start to drop.

(I love the business casual look for the way it combines unattractive with unprofessional while diminishing neither.) Being casual remains unattractive and unprofessional.

If you were to wear a smart business suit every day and then suddenly, without warning, turn up in denim and a worn T-shirt, chances are people would look at you

askance.* look at you askance means to look sideways at you - they will not look you directly in the face.

If you turn in good work and then one day hand in a pile of rubbish, people are going to think you have blown it You have failed

.

You must be blameless, above reproach (that is probably the same thing), honest, reliable and dependable (again that is probably the same thing). They are subtly different:
blameless = not responsible for anything bad; above reproach = cannot be blamed; honest = truthful; reliable = can be trusted to behave as expected; dependable = someone in whom you can have confidence.

But you do not have to be grey or dull or boring. You can be exciting, dynamic, stylish, adventurous, innovative, challenging (accept challenges or challenge others? challenge others to match you) â just make sure that whatever it is you decide to be, you stick at it and be consistent consistently. Always be consistent - not varying your behaviour or actions.

We are not talking budgets here or corporate targets. We are talking personal goals, personal objectives, personal bottom line What is being dicussed are goals and aims that are unique/personal to you.

It has always led me to believe I am a failure, but I found out the other day that there is a gene for good sporting skills and it is one I obviously don't have. Am I a failure? Nope, just genetically challenged, and I can't beat myself up about that. Lacking the gene for good sporting skills, so have to work extra hard at these skills as I am not genetically designed to be good at them.

There is not another person in sight [This sentence lacks enough context to be sure what the author means, but something being in sight means you can see it] because measuring (it means comparing, doesn't it?Yes - with the additional meaning of assessing yourself in terms of the other.) yourself against anyone else is a mug's game.

I once owned a motor bike â a rather grand one and I loved it very much. I came alongside another motorcyclist at the traffic lights and looked his bike over. ' That is the one I want,' I cried to myself in the splendid isolation of my crash helmet. [I said to myself in my mind] He was looking at my bike and obviously thinking the same thing. As the lights changed and we both roared [they both accelerated hard so their motorbikes roared away] away together I realized he and I were riding identical bikes. Ah, the fickle mind, how it winds us up, beats us up [upsets us - makes us worry] and plays tricks. Look at anyone and chances are there will be something to envy, but you don't know what goes on inside them. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes, they say, and chances are you will be a mile away; but you have got their shoes, make a run for it. The first part is part of a saying: To understand another person, walk a mile in their shoes; The author has combined this with suggesting that rather than merely envy other people, set out to match and better them and their achievements - you have got their shoes, you have walked a mile in them, now run away and keep the shoes.

No one knows what goes on inside your head. No one knows what lofty heights [metaphorical mountains - the heights of success] you aspire to. No one knows what you are really up to â remember Rule 40: know what you are actually doing â so you can work on your game plan [your own plan for your career] and be doing your job well at the same time

there is nothing quite like having someone dampen your firework.[firework = fire-crackers and so on, which won't work if they are wet; metaphorically allowing other people to prevent you succeeding.] An awful lot of management is having front â being able to look the part, to inspire confidence, to walk your walk. If people get wind of any game plan that deviates from that confident air of the perfect manager they will lose confidence. The important thing in business is never to seem at a loss or unsure of what you are doing. If you look and behave with confidence, then people will believe you.

.

If you have a game plan of rapid promotion, people will assume you are a high flyer [high achiever] and stop giving you long-term projects on the grounds that you will be moving up too soon. And so on. Play your cards close to your chest [don't let other people know what you plan to do] and keep up the appearance of dedication, commitment, reliability, diligence [working hard]and stability â even if in your heart of hearts you are planning revolution, climbing Everest or taking over the empire.

In any workplace there will be a mountain of red tape, [In Britain legal documents were and are tied together with a pink tape, which is known as red tape - it is a metaphor for over-control] bureaucracy, old rules left in place from previous management regimes â get rid of them all. Question everything you and your team do and make it work slicker and quicker (what's the difference?slicker = more efficient; quicker = faster) by getting rid of anything that is redundant, unnecessary, left over.[get rid of anything you feel is unecessary. This is the work equivalent of clutter clearing, process feng shui [ "feng shui" - Chinese theory of making a place harmonise with the environment - so "process feng shui" is de-cluttering office processes] if you like.

Beats me, but I had to work unbelievably hard to get rid of that bit of Dickensian nonsenseDickensian = old-fashioned

You won't beat yourself up over them, nor sit in a pit of misery over them [You will not agonise about them] but you will analyze what went wrong, discuss with colleagues why it went wrong and make a plan to prevent it from going wrong again.

You are a better manager, more experienced, have a wider spectrum to call on [make use of] when you have made a few errors.

Phew!!

Re: Evolution - are all races equally developed?

Forbes — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 01:23:06 GMT

Stannum wrote:

Forbes wrote:
I take them to be an affront to the dignity and humanity of the people to whom they refer. Being of a generous disposition, I will allow that people who make such statements may not have taken the opportunity to think through exactly what it is that they have said.

G'day Forbes,

Did you actually read the quote by John Locke before you came on all affronted at me and my opinion??

Indeed I did. Twice.

I have explained above the reasons for expressing affront at your statement. Since it appears that I misunderstood your precise meaning I concede that my affront was misplaced.

Stannum wrote:
You believe that you hold the certain and absolute truth in this matter and your truth flies in the face of my perception but I am not affronted by your opinion.

Whilst I hold certain cherished opinions, I am naturally sceptical and if pressed will concede that all my opinions are provisional. My main purpose in arguing with you is to try and get over the point that intelligence is something specific quite separate from any other mental faculty and unconnected to behaviour. The problem we have is that we do not seem to mean the same thing by intelligence. I wish you would tell me what you understand by it.

Stannum wrote:
You criticised my habit of picking apart your metaphor rather than your overall argument but you just went through Alexa's argument like a dose of salts. I smell more than a hypothetical conflict.

I am not quite sure I understand your point. I gave a definition of intelligence and taking each point asked Alexa how she considered that the pregnant girl was less intelligent than a chimpanzee.

Stannum wrote:
You quote Locke about the need to be inclusive of diverse opinions but are affronted by mine. The smell rises and methinks The Bard was right about the aroma of Denmark.

I do not think that Locke requires us not to be affronted. His main point is that we should not expect to convert people to our point of view.

Stannum wrote:
I do not agree with your opinion on this subject but to this point I have been studiously polite to you. I have complimented your obvious intellect but I am now questioning other aspects of your contribution to my opinion.

I hope that I have now removed any doubts.

Stannum wrote:
I think that the fact that this forum finds it necessary to in effect censor John Locke with a locked (how delightful) thread says something about the level of paranoia rearding the questioning of Authortative Opinion or Established Fact that is insideously infltrating our collective consciousness.

I confess to being puzzled why the thread is locked.

Stannum wrote:
We are way past 1984 (or are some of us caught in a time warp yearning for the 1950s)

I certainly have no wish to go back to the forelock tugging fifties.

Re: Evolution - are all races equally developed?

Stannum — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 19:31:46 GMT

Forbes wrote:
I take them to be an affront to the dignity and humanity of the people to whom they refer. Being of a generous disposition, I will allow that people who make such statements may not have taken the opportunity to think through exactly what it is that they have said.

G'day Forbes,

Did you actually read the quote by John Locke before you came on all affronted at me and my opinion??

You believe that you hold the certain and absolute truth in this matter and your truth flies in the face of my perception but I am not affronted by your opinion.

You criticised my habit of picking apart your metaphor rather than your overall argument but you just went through Alexa's argument like a dose of salts. I smell more than a hypothetical conflict.

You quote Locke about the need to be inclusive of diverse opinions but are affronted by mine. The smell rises and methinks The Bard was right about the aroma of Denmark.

I do not agree with your opinion on this subject but to this point I have been studiously polite to you. I have complimented your obvious intellect but I am now questioning other aspects of your contribution to my opinion.

I think that the fact that this forum finds it necessary to in effect censor John Locke with a locked (how delightful) thread says something about the level of paranoia rearding the questioning of Authortative Opinion or Established Fact that is insideously infltrating our collective consciousness.

We are way past 1984 (or are some of us caught in a time warp yearning for the 1950s)

Stannum

[Edited for rogue formatting; quotation from John Locke removed. Please do not paste directly from Word. The formatting causes problems.]

Re: is it too informal? Urgent pls...

Grammar Geek — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 21:28:53 GMT

Hi Karaf,

Whether the metaphor is too informal depends on who the readers are.

If you want to keep it, I'd recommend: Just as you cannot have a truly happy marriage with a person whom you are not in love with, you cannot reach your goals...

and continue to use "you." OR... start with "we" the whole time. But don't switch.

grammatical check

Murajica — Fri, 12 May 2006 02:19:51 GMT

Dear Members!

I am a new member and I would need some urgent academic help. Tomorrow i have to submit an essay for my postgraduate study. as Slovenian I am not sure if everything is in order in the essay. I attached the essay in this message. If anybody would consider looking into my essay I would be more then glad about that.

Introduction

This essay represents a possible answer to the question of the transforming the form of power from classical physical, person-to-person alike configurations to the new formation of ubiquitous - virtual â power. In contemporary society the classical Benthamâs idea of Panopticon has been employed to society as an âElectronic Panopticonâ wherein government agencies, commercial interests and corporations use information technologies to sort people into âgroupsâ or âtypesâ. Supervisors exert power over the supervised in some manner or other (King 2001). As some authors still interpret Western society with the few-watch-many panopticon model, called as exclusionary fortress (King 2001), others are more focused on many-watch-few the Synopticon model (Bauman 1998). Yet, essay examines the similarities and differences of those two models, with an additional consideration to a hybrid model of the superpanopticism.

Why is than that this utilitarian two hundred years old idea of panopticon survived and extended in to new â hybrid â forms? This essay provides also the retrospective of the development of the power and public surveillance from the panoptic initial idea till nowadays electronic global power.

The spread of globalization and electronic era brought new technologies in everybodyâs everyday life. Over all, I should repeat the questions raised by Lyon (1994) whether do those new technologies spell a qualitatively new surveillance? If so, does this add up to the emergence of a more authoritarian, prison-like society? I conclude with the question if this is really prison-like society for everybody or only for non reluctant citizen. Therefore, is the new society really the limited society? Do we as contemporary residents have lack of opportunities and live in virtual cells or are we all just blinded and idled of all opportunities?

But again, what about the residents of the non-western, âunderdevelopedâ world â under what source and type of the surveillance do they live and what is their opportunity of resistance when they choose to âenterâ the West â so called surveillance society. What does it mean to shift the âreal jungleâ with the âmanufactured jungleâ?

From Panopticon to Synopticon

Todayâs society is often called as surveillance society. Many consider contemporary society as Post-Panopticon society, as a copy of initial idea of the total, the 360 degree surveillance area.

In the eighteen century a British reformer Jeremy Bentham presented the blueprint of optimal surveillance object called the Panopticon. This rounded structure with the watch tower in the axis of circle gives the gatekeeper/supervisor the ability to see all without being seen; ultimately it gives the keeper the ability to exert power over the inmates. Primary, it was meant to revolutionise the way in which prisons were administrate (King 2001). âThere were no more bars, no more chains, no more heavy locksâ¦â (Foucault 1991: 202)

In the Panopticon, the peripheral mass cannot see the observers, and must assume that someone may be watching over them at all time (Boyne 2000). One of the most influential theoretic of the philosophy of Panopticon, Michael Foucault describes it as a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad. In the ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing, when on the other side in the core tower, one sees everything without ever being seen (Foucault 1991). Another weighty sociologist Zygmunt Bauman foremostly sees Panopticon as a weapon against difference, choice and variety (1998). In this point, we can presume that Panopticon is really an opposite idea of democracy. But, as we will see latter, many connect the panopticism with the Western democratic society. Bauman further claims that âThe Panopticonâs main purpose was to install discipline and to impose a uniform pattern on the behaviour of its inmates.â (Bauman 1998:50)

A pictorial description of original Benthamâs Panopticon was provided by Foucault, describing it as an architectural figure of this composition. He describes the principle on which it was based:

ââ¦at the periphery, an annular building; at the centre, tower. A watchtower is pierced with wide windows that open onto inner side of the ring. The peripheral building is divided into cells, each of which extends the whole width of the building. They have two windows, one on the inside, corresponding to the windows of the tower; the other, on the outside, allows the light to cross the cell from one end to other. All that is needed, than, is a supervisor in a central tower and to shut up in each cell a madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker or a school boy.â (Foucault 1991: 200)

While poignant, the architecture of Foucaultâs version of Benthamâs Panopticon produces a kind of double vision; two different, divergent stories of the development of evidently modern relations of surveillance, domination and control. Firstly, the story of what goes on with the supervisor or inspector in the central tower and secondly what happens to the person in the cell. The tale of the supervisor takes us to the techniques of observation, information gathering, data management, simulation and to (what Foucault later describes as) âa biopolitics of the populationâ (Simon 2005). George Orwell (1984 in Simon 2005:4) precisely describes the effect as a result of Panopticon:

âThere was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the timeâ¦ You had to live â did live, from habit that became instinct â in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every moment scrutinized.â

The Panoptic machine makes one visible and at the same time it hides the operations (motives, practice, and ethics) of the supervisor. This relation (being seen without being able to see) provides uncertainty which become a source of anxiety, discomfort and even terror (Simon 2005).

In The Panopticon also the observers were under possible control, it may ever provide an apparatus for supervising its own mechanisms. (Foucault 1991)

One of the important deficiencies of the Panopticon model was exposed by Simon (2005). Though, the Panopticon makes all acts in principle visible in cannot distinguish between acts that conform to the rules and acts which pretend co conform to the rules. Nevertheless, the idea of Panopticon is not always the optimal explanation for the role of power in the modern society. Although, as we will se latter, we can easily name modern public sphere with Foucaultian expression âlaboratory of powerâ, has the contemporary society mirrored the sight to the surveillance. The supervision of the few watching the many has turned to the many watching the few.

Reading with Foucault rather than against him Mathesion (in Simon 2005) theorizes a role for the synoptic machine of the contemporary culture industries; accounted for by the critical theory tradition. By the critics like Mathesion and Baudrillard the individualâs relation to the modern media is rather synoptic than panoptic; the relation is extremely visual, where the many (an audience) observe the few (the television programme). But yet we can argue, that provided synoptic apparatus is in tight symbiosis with the panoptic. But one can at this point draw on media theory and argue that synoptic function of the media is the production of homogenous knowledge and wide spread culture (ibid.).

At this point in the theory, the Synopticon emerged as the hybrid version of the Panopticon. Thomas Mathiesen coined the memorial phrase, where the introduction of panoptical power represented a fundamental transformation from situation where the few watch the many to a situation where the many watch the few (Bauman 1998). Bauman (1998) further adds that Synopticon is in its nature global. The watchers are united from their locality and at least spiritually they are transported into cyberspace. Distance no longer matters, even if bodily they remain in place. Globalization is not about what we all wish or hope to do, it is about what happening in the worldwide level, it is about what is happening to all of us (ibid.). It does not matter any more if the targets of the Synopticon mutated from the watched into the watchers stay in the place or move around the globe. And who are the new watched population at whom Synopticon âaim its arrowsâ?

âThe many watch the few. The few who are watched are the celebrities. They may come from the world of politics, of sport, of science or show business, or just be celebrated information specialists. Wherever they come from, though, all displayed celebrities put on display the world of celebrities â a world whose main distinctive feature is precisely the quality of being watched â by many, and in all corners of the globe: of being global in their capacity of being watched.â (Bauman 1998:53)

The main difference by the word of Bauman (1998) is that Panopticon forced people into the position where they could be watched, but Synopticon on the other hand needs no coercion. People are seduced into watching and the watched few are tightly selected. Surveillance and consecutively the power are therefore spreading among all of us. We-as the audience are all the part of Synopticon and therefore we are all in the possession of power. We have the possibility to survey and the possibility to be a part of the apparatus. The fictive power is dividing from our television receiver to yours receiver. The power and the surveillance are spreading through the signals, networks and internet connections and they are imaginatively connecting us. Ultimately, we are all part of the game of surveillance, gathered in the electronic arena, where in a fictive menagerie we watch over the selected few. We are covetous for their private life. Their privacy is our required publicity.

The development of new technologies and new techniques of power, consist â on the contrary â in the many watching the few. That is shown in the rise of mass media â television more than any other. That leads to the creation, alongside the Panopticon, of another power mechanism which, coining another apt phrase â Synopticon (Bauman 1998).

History review of surveillance and power

Lyon (1994) sets out as prominent work about surveillance two main traditions the Marxian and the Weberian. Karl Marxâs special attention on surveillance is in aspect of the struggle between labour and capital, where worker is viewed as a means of maintaining managerial control on behalf of capital. Opposite, Max Webber concentrates on the manners that all modern organizations develop means of storing and retrieving data in the form of files as part of the quest of efficient practice within bureaucracy. Such files contain personal information so that government can supervise population. Furthermore, we should opt on Foucaultâs contribution to surveillance theory. He claims that modern societies have introduced and employed a range of disciplinary practices rather than relaying on external controls and constrains. This practice is necessary for life to continue in a regularized patterned way. (Lyon 1994)

For Foucault (1991) the panopticism is the general principle of new political elites, who use it as a relation of discipline and not the relation of sovereignty. He sees the idea of panopticism have spread over the globe:

ââ¦although the universal juridicism of modern society seems to fix limits on the exercise of power, its universally widespread panopticism enables it to operate, in the underside of the law, a machinery that is both immense and minute, which supports, reinforces, multiplies the asymmetry of power and undermines the limits that are traced around the law. /â¦/ in the genealogy of modern society, they have been, with the class domination that traverses it, the political counterpart of the juridical norms according to which power is redistributed. (Foucault 1991: 223)

Governments in 1960s and 1970s developed large-scale date integration projects, which had raised the fear of the omniscient âBig Brotherâ state. In that time individuals knew when data about them, and for whom and for what reason had been collected. Surveillance systems at that time were discrete and bounded. The concept of databanks expressed a technological and political reality that personal information system had some clear boundaries (Bennett 2001). 1970s were also the time of Orwellian Big Brother states.â This position might be contrasted with that of Lyon (1994) who kept the Orwellian nightmare of 1984 at bay with a Foucauldian emphasis on discipline but has moved on (Lyon, 2001) to incorporate some of the arguments about risk society from Beck.â (Lyon, 2001:10-113).

Anthony Giddens (in Lyon 1994) describes some differences of surveillance in the western societies and the surveillance in the totalitarian eastern block. He finds a gap distinction between surveillance as âgathering data onâ and âsupervisingâ people. Giddens claims that totalitarianism is, first of all, an extreme focusing of surveillance (ibid.). But the changes in the political systems, the global technological progress and above all the globalization changed the rules. To conquer and survey the world, one does not need to be present in all places for all the time.

âIn the world we inhabit, distance does not seem to matter much. Sometimes it seems that it exists solely in order to be cancelled; as if space was but a constant invitation to slight it, refute and deny. Space stopped being an obstacle â one needs just a split second to conquer it.â (Bauman 1998:77)

In fact, as Kavanagh (1996 in Bauman 1998) stated, globalization is a paradox. While it is very beneficial to a very few, it leaves out or marginalizes two-thirds of the world.

Latest surveillance studies have gone further than Foucault in demonstrating new data collection with sophisticated, yet manipulated forms to alter, manage or even control the live chances of the supervised person (Gandy 1993). As an example Simon (2005) proposes census data, used to generate profiles of various populations to guide the development of government policies, which have further define effects on persons, independent of their knowledge. Only a step away is insurance data, credit information, marketing data etc. In all this cases, data obtained from people is managed independently and used to structure the lives of those people.

New forms of surveillance

As we see, in the contemporarily people are facing the paradoxical situation, where everybody can be the object of observation and simultaneously the subject that execute the surveillance. The strength of the surveillance is taking away our privacy; it prevails into ours most intimate moment and places. The systems of surveillance possess the power for assembling and finally to assemble all needed information that we have ever put into the circulation. Our credit card or post code of our home address, calls made from the mobile and even type of food that we buy in our favourite shop with our favourite club card all tell more about us than we would at anytime wanted to be known. In the traditionally disciplinary the object of surveillance was the body but in âdataveillanceâ the object of control is simply the digital representation of the body (Simon 2005). Huge data collection systems connected to each other also support each other with the latest information about us and use us and information about us as crucial capital and power.

âNo one is spying on us, exactly, although for many people that is what it feels like if and when they find out just how detailed a picture of us is available. âTheyâ know things about us, but we often donât know what they know, why they know, or with whom else they might share their knowledge.â (Lyon 1994:4)

Dataveillance (the collection, organization and storage of information about persons) and biometrics (the use of the body as a measure of identity) have not only come into focus with the post 9/11 security consciousness of state institutions. These technologies are now becoming a regular feature of the everyday lives and culture of citizens. (Simon 2005)

Deluze (1992 in Simon 2005:17) for example claims that in societies of control what is important is no longer either a signature or a number, but a code â the code is a password and it stand in for bodies. He remarks âthe numerical language of control is made of codes that mark access to information, or reject it. We no longer find ourselves dealing with the mass/individual pair. Individuals have become âdividualsâ and masses, samples, data, markets or âbanksâ.â We can support the Deluzeâs idea with a claim that societies have shifted from disciplinary societies to societies of control. This idea parallels the critiques of panopticism, which point to a shift away from classical visual surveillance to dataveillance as a mode of ordering information. Clark (1988 in Howard et al. 2005:69) coined the term dataveillance to signify âthe systematic use of personal data systems in the investigation or monitoring of the actions or communications of one or more personsâ in an effort to analyze the potential for new digital technologies to allow âincreased surveillance of the citizen by the state, and the consumer by the corporation.â

Simon (2005) claims, that the surveillance apparatus does not act on bodies or minds but on information about them. Thus, we can say that dataveillance corresponds to the modulatory effects of power, as it is described by Deleuze (1992 in Simon 2005:15):

âthe image of a city âwhere one would be able to leave oneâs apartment, oneâs street, oneâs neighbourhood, thanks to oneâs âdividual electronic card that raises a given barrier; but the card could just as easily be rejected on a given day or between certain hours; what counts is not the barrier but the computer that tracks each personâs position â licit or illicit â and effects a universal modulationâ.

Poster (1992) explains the shift to control societies in terms of the superpanopticism. He argues that, it does not operate through external force or expected internal norms but rather in terms of discourse and the linguistic properties of digital computation. The electronic database is the core of the superpanopticon, it is a sorting machine that organizes and produces subjects. As David Lyon summarizes:

the subject is multiplied and decentred in the database, acted on by remote computers each time a record is automatically verified or checked against another, without ever referring to the individual concerned /â¦/ computers become machines for producing retrievable identities (Lyon 2001: 115).

Poster (1992??preveri ker spodaj maÅ¡ 1996) writes about new forms of power where the unwanted surveillance of personal choice becomes a discursive reality through the willing participation of the surveilled individual. In this instance the play of power and discourse is uniquely configured. The one being surveilled provides the information necessary for surveillance.

The diagram of superpanopticism is not a diagram of surveillance in the traditional sense, no one is watching us and we do not perceive ourselves as being watched. We simply go about our business while our databased selves are assembled, scrutinized and evaluated in much more detail than the inmates at Foucaultâs Mettray prison ever experienced (ibid.).

At the same time we allow the surveillance as we are part of surveillance society â where for exchange of our information we can be part of âthe manyâ that watch âthe fewâ. We live in the Panopticon but at the same time we participate and even with ease enjoy the Synopticon. Foucaultâs version of Benthamâs plan has been upgraded, so that the inmate is aware of the gaze of the supervisor through signs of their presence. This is initially ominous tower with its shielded windows signifying the presence of the guards, but it could also easily be the insidious sign of the CCTV camera or the spy satellite as material extensions of the human eye (Simon 2005).

However, it is the sign of presence of surveillance and not its actual presence that matters here. Yet we can say that this is what makes possible to substitute fake supervisor (cameras) for real ones and still achieve the same effects of power and domination. (Norris 2003). Or as Foucault (1991:200) claims âvisibility is a trap.â

Lyon (1994) claims that interesting challenge to surveillance studies presented by processes such as computer-matching is than an essentially technical procedure contribute to the blurring of conventionally conceived boundaries.

King (2001) asserts that Panopticon is still a useful metaphor for the examination of the world we live in and as well understanding of its history and how it is mirrored in nowadays Western society.

It is on this point that the critique of Foucault takes on its strongest form. As Anthony Giddens (1990) has noted, modern surveillance can be denoted by increasing distances between the observer and the observed. So can we ultimately find the connections between the initial Panopticon prison idea and modern surveillance society? Following Gary Marx (1988 in Simon 2005) we can extrapolate from guards in the watchtower to some hi-tech management and policing systems: a kind of prototypical hybrid-police-cyborg using progressively more sophisticated technical capacity for monitoring (CCTV, infrared cameras, electronic tags), data storage (huge hard drives systems), networking (data conversion) and analysis (systems capable of advanced pattern recognition and multivariate sorting) (ibid.).

Particular forms of communication are vital aspects of what it means to be human. What we disclose to whom, and under what conditions, is highly significant. What once we might have revealed, consciously, about ourselves to someone we trust â friend, doctor, priest, therapist â may now be involuntarily disclosed by electronic means to organizations or machines that we cannot know, let alone trust, in the same way (Lyon 1994).

âPrecise details of our personal lives are collected stored, retrieved and processed every day within huge computer databases belonging to big corporations and government departments. This is âsurveillance societyâ.â (Lyon 1994:3)

An interesting comparison with the new Lyonâs surveillance society was a lot earlier provided by Foucault, when he talked about the power of the Panopticon. He considers the activity of the Panopticon also as a kind of laboratory of power. Because of its mechanisms of observation, it gains in efficiency and in the ability to penetrate into menâs behaviour; knowledge follows the advances of power, discovering new objects of knowledge over all the surfaces on which power is exercised (Foucault 1991). Introducing the Panopticon into the contemporary society, we can understand the present public sphere â surveyed, tracked and surrounded with the linked apparatuses filled with data of citizens as a huge laboratory of virtual power.

For Mark Poster the post-modern is classified as a âmode of informationâ. He raises the question of location of human self if fragments of personal data constantly circulate within computer systems, beyond any agentâs personal control. (Lyon 1994)

Further, for Bauman (1998), then, the dream of total control, exemplified by the Panopticon, is really fully applicable only within a âclockworkâ society, whose inhabitants are required to have fixed places, functions and appetites. âAdvanced Westernâ societies are not like this. On the other hand, for the inhabitants of the first world state borders are levelled down, as they are dismantled for the worldâs commodities, capital and finances. But for the inhabitant of the second world, the walls built of immigration controls, of residence laws, and of âclean streetsâ and âzero toleranceâ policies, grow taller. (Bauman 1998)

My thesis and conclusion

The provided literature and shown examples have, therefore, made a systematic case in support of the proposition that technology and advance have made possible the systems of domination and power, especially virtual apparatus to supervise with supremacy over the people of postmodernity. As power is indeed strongly roped with forms of technology, it is possible to agree that power is nowadays virtual in form, with âsurveillance /â¦/, as an institutionally central and pervasive feature of social lifeâ¦â (Lyon 1994:24)

In fact, it is interesting to accept the fact that new virtual forms of information technology are constructing society as well physically (modern surveillance systems) as also socially (changing of public behaviour, new ways of pleasure and voyeurism â when many watch the few, or surveillance for pleasure, etc.). Although, it is significant to point out that in contemporary society â as Anthony Giddens called it with felicitous phrase, a âmanufactured jungleâ no physical presence of âanotherâ is needed to perceive his influential power and surveillance; no matter what place or what moment in the society do we take into consideration.

The power of supervision has developed in recent years with the speed of the development of science and technology. With introduction of new â especially virtual technology apparatuses, one is becoming even more âthe objectâ of observation and surveillance. Discrepancy between private â intimate side of life and the public access to oneâs personal matters has blurred to the degree, where one can no more foresight when, how and by who is observed at the particular moment. Yet, I could agree with intimidated and tighten theories of âtotal disclosureâ proposed by theoretic of surveillance (Orwell, Lyon, Foucault, etc.), where apparatus of the state, economic and media govern its population in the scheme of matrix. Individual can be metaphorical staged with the famous Foucaultian quote:

âHe is seen, but he does not see he is the object of information, never a subject in communication.â (Foucault 1991: 200)

One has no more option to be under self control only, but has become the object of the total observation drawled in the matrix of the mass.

Is the new democracy really the new totalitarianism with millions of pigeonholes or is it opposite of the verified systems with negative connotation, known from the past?

At the Titoâs Yugoslavia there was a well known âbrainwashâ rule proposed by the government to its population saying that âNon-friend never sleeps! Everybody has to be aware at all time.â Citizens attended to be continuously frightened and therefore they suppose to trust the state and follow and obey its instructions. Police, army and other political commissars controlled the nation with ceaseless personal control. The possibility of resistance was at minimum, boundaries were almost closed and one had almost no place to manoeuvre.

Therefore, I can somehow not find the direct linking between new âWesternâ types of surveillance and old totalitarian types of all-time pressure surveillance and I can easily argue that at this moment one has a possibility of choice whether he would like to allow (or not disallow) to be supervised or yet he can resist and try to ignore the systems of surveillance in the name of his belonging right to the privacy. Resistance always demands more inclusion then following and obeying â but what matters here is the choice of not being supervised and therefore at least in the legitimate way choice of own personal private life. In the time of the stateâs personal surveillance â this possibility was not directly an option.

Such arguments, I would argue and widen with the fact that global life is possibly becoming multidimensional and as well extremely rapid â consecutively one has no more energy, time or even possibility to pay attention of own surveillance. Equally, it can be also possible to argue King (2001) which claims that information and communication technologies have advanced at an incredible rate, so that we can do things that at one time were not possible but at the same time we have become traceable to an unprecedented degree. But the fact remains: power has become in modern society virtual in form â whether we accept it or not. The only question is, whether we are utterly loosing the connection when and how the new technologies is going to track us.

Resources:

- Bauman Z. (1998) Globalization â The Human Conequences Cambridge: Polity.

- Bennett J. C. (2001) âCookies, web bugs, webcams and cue cats: Patterns of surveillance on the world wide webâ Ethic and Information Technology Vol.3 pp.197-201.

- Boyne R. (2000) âPost-Panopticismâ Economy and Society Vol.29 No.2 pp.285-307.

- Foucault M. (1991 [1975]) Discipline and Punish â The Birth of the Prison London: Penguin Books.

- Gandy, O. (1993). The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information. Boulder, CO, Westview Press.

- Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge, Polity Press.

- Green, S. (1999) âA Plague on the Panopticon: Surveillance and Power in the Global Information Economy.â Information, Communication and Society 2(1): 26-44.

- Howard N. P., Carr N. J. and Milstein J. T. (2005) âDigital Technology and the Market for Political Surveillanceâ Surveillance & Society Vol.3 No.1 pp.59-73.

- King L. (2001) âInformation, Society and the Panopticonâ The Western Journal o Graduate Research Vol. 10, No.1 pp.40-50.

- Norris, C. (2003) âFrom Personal to Digital: CCTV, the Panopticon and the Technological Mediation of Suspicion and Social Control.â Surveillance as Social Sorting. D. Lyon (ed.). London, Routledge.

- Lyon D. (1994) The Electronic Eye â The Rise of Surveillance Society Cambridge: Polity Press.

- Lyon, D. (2001) Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life. Buckingham, Open University Press.

- Poster, M. (1996) âDatabases as Discourse, or, Electronic Interpellations.â Computers, Surveillance, and Privacy. D. Lyon and E. Zureik (eds.). Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press: 175-192.

- Simon B. (2005) âThe Return of Panopticism: Supervision, Subjection and New Surveillanceâ Surveillance & Society Vol.3 No.1 pp.1-20 online: http://www.surveillance-and-society.org

Re: Preposition

Mister Micawber — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 13:11:45 GMT

Hi ENG,

1-- A style point: amid a backdrop is a mixed metaphor, or at least it is physically impossible. Amid much controversy, etc or with a backdrop of controversy, etc.

2-- Another style point: frenetic bustle is redundant, pleonastic. The bustle of the metropolis or the frenetic activity or the metropolis.

3-- No the before the 3rd mention of Federation Square.

4-- Who, not whom. And I would be tempted to enclose incredibly within commas.

About America's declaration of cultural independence

jeff_999 — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 05:43:56 GMT

It was taken from an article. But there are some questions I hope you will explain for me with details.

"For Emerson, what Thoreau lacked, Whitman embodied in full. On reading Leaves of Gras (1855), Emerson saw in Whitman the "prophet of democracy" whom he had sought. Other American Renaissance writers were less sanguine than Emerson and Whitman about the fulfillment of the democratic ideal. In The Scarlet Letter (1850), Hawthorne concluded that antinomianism such as the "heroics" displayed by Hester Prynne leads to moral anarchy; and Melville, who saw in his story of Pierre (1952) a metaphor for the misguided assumptions of democratic idealism, declared the transcendentalist dream unrealizable. Ironically, the literary vigor with which both Hawthorne and Melville explored the ideal showed their deep sympathy with it even as they dramatized its delusions. "

We see clearly that there are two schools of writers regarding the democratic ideal. The first group consists of Emerson, Whitman; the other Hawthorne and Melville. So, here comes the first question: does Hester Prynne fit in the first school?

Then we see the first school was defined with prophet of democracy, transcendentalist, etc. What are antinomianism and heroics? Do they have anything to do with "transcendentalist"?

The third question is:
Does the italic "his" in red refer to "Melville"?

The fourth one:

What's the meaning of the last sentence in boldface?

Thank you so much!

Please look through this essay (2) ;)

leruffiant — Thu, 06 Jan 2005 12:47:55 GMT

The Influence of Dadaism with the emphasis on the works of Kurt Schwitters

Introduction
The reason why I wanted to write about Dadaism and Kurt Schwitters is that I âdiscoveredâ Kurt Schwitters on a Compositional forum I attended at my old University. The way of dadaist performance, which may seem spontaneous - but jet ârealâ and ânaturalâ is in a way what a lot of performances today seem to lack. I think that this is something I think more performers should strive for. Dadaism may sound a bit inaccessible for the average listener of today â but what many people donât realise is that the Dadaists where hugely influential on todayâs music. I think it must be said that Dadaism is not widely known for its contribution in music, but more in poetry, painting and sculpture. I shall try to focus on musical aspects of Dadaism in this essay â especially the influential âUrsonateâ by Kurt Schwitters, and geographically and period-wise I am going to limit myself to the Hanover Dada (As Richter points out in his book Dada you had several periods of the movement, being Zurich Dada from 1915-1920, New York Dada from 1915-1920, Berlin Dada from1918-1923, Hanover Dada, Cologne Dada, Paris Dada from 1919-1922, Post-Dada, and finally Neo-Dada).

The Origins of Dada
Where and when did Dadaism begin? The answer to that, unlike many other directions and genres in art is not a very clear one. According to Hans Richter in the book Dada â art and anti-art â 1964, Raoul Hausmann, the chief of the Berlin Dada movement believes that it was himself that discovered Dada in 1915. On the contrary, Claude RiviÃ¨re, names Picabia as the originator of Dada.
All of this put aside, I really think that one should focus on the ideas and concepts of Dada, rather to decide who to give credit for whom started the movement. But as for now â we can say that Dada was established around 1915, and it was something that happened in different parts of the world for similar reasons. The reasons why many believe Dada happened was that in 1915, after the outbreak of the First World War began, many artists travelled to neutral Switzerland. Amongst them was Hugo Ball and Emmy Hemmings, and we can with certainty say that Ball was the first one to publish a Dada text (published after his death in 1927 under the title âFlucht aus der Zeitâ), first dated 1st if February 1916, and it was a diary he wrote â which Richter often quotes in his book to support different stories.
The first Dadaist music can said to have come from âCabaret Voltaireâ â mentioned in Balls diaries as a âgroup of young artists and writers has formed with the object of becoming a centre for artistic entertainment. The Cabaret Voltaire will be run on the principle of daily meetings where visiting artists will perform their music and poetry. The young artists of Zurich are invited to bring their ideas and contributionsâ. This was basically a night-club in Zurich (No1 Spiegelgasse) where they got together and shared ideas â they had readings of modern French poetry which alternated with recitals by German, Russian and Swiss poets. They played old music as well as new. Tristan Tzara was one of the poets frequenting Cabaret Voltaire â and as Richter says:
âHe declaimed, sang and spoke in French, although he could do so just as well in German, and punctuated his performances with screams, sobs and whistles.. Bells, drums, cow-bells, blows on the table or on empty boxes, all enlivened the already wild accents of the new poetic language, and excited, by purely physical means, an audience which had begun by sitting impassively behind its beer-mugs. From this state of immobility it was roused into frenzied involvement with what was going on. This was Art, this was Life, and this was what they wanted!â

The Futurists had already introduced provocation in art, and this as an art form was called Brutism. This was very much inspired by the Futurist Luigi Russoloâs Noise Organ which he made in 1911 â which could conjure up all the distracting sounds of everyday existence. Both Futurism and Dadaism was very much about provocation and was extreme in many ways. As Futurism showed an excitement about chaos, war, noise and destruction â the Dadaists also tried to follow this through in their artistic expression and with a world in rapid change the art movements also gained a furious momentum. One could say that Futurism had a very clear agenda or programme whilst Dada was against having any clear agenda or programme.

Automatic poetry: Springs directly from the poets bowels or other organs, which have stored up reserves of usable material.

Ball 18th April: Dada as a name for the magazine is agreed. No-one, to this day know who invented the word Dada, or what it means. But, as Richter says: Da, da (Russian) means Yes, yes â and is an appropriate description of their way of life.
Different meanings though: Rumanian / Russian: Yes, yes â French: Rocking Horse â German: Idiot naivety.

A man from Hanover - Kurt Schwitters,1887-1948

âSchwitters (Ill. 69) was absolutely, unreservedly, 24-hours-a-day PRO-art. His genius had no time for transforming the world, or values, or the present, or the future, or the past; no time in fact for any of the things that were heralded by blasts of Berlinâs Trump of Doom. There was no talk of the âdeath of artâ, or ânon-artâ, or âanti-artâ with him. On the contrary, every tram-ticket, every envelope, cheese wrapper or cigar-band, together with old shoe-soles or shoe-laces, wire, feathers, dishcloths â everything that had been thrown away â all this he loved, and restored to an honoured place in life by means of his art (Ills. 67-74)â â Hans Richter

Schwitters never had the acceptance of his contemporary Dadaists, which one could say is quite sad â he was frozen out for unknown reasons by Huelsenbeck of the club Dada â which upon Schwitters request to join the club Dada had said that the club was not for âevery Tom, Dick and Harryâ. Schwitters failed to be recognised in his time â but in the last years, people have taken a renewed interest in him. A factor in this is probably the release of his Ursonate on CD in the mid-nineties. When Schwitters failed to join the club, he made his own movement called MERZ in Hanover, which the name he extracted from âCommerzbankâ. This word would be the name of an early picture of Schwitters, but later on he gave the word a lot more meaning, by saying that it was the term for his art. He started to use this term on all of his works, and he also released a regular column named Merz. The term Merz is in some way understandable, given the materials he worked with. He re-used commercial items in a way that it was never used before â and thus, maybe the word Merz became a metaphor for this.

The Music
One could argue that what I would today call music (Schwittersâ poetry), would maybe then be classified as non-sense Dada-poetry. But the phonetic and rhythmic qualities are so exaggerated in Dada poetry, that for me â this becomes music. The Ursonate is Schwitters most extensive and most complex sound seal. The structure follows, ironically broken, the structure of a classical Sonate - the border between linguistic and musical composition is waived. The Ursonate lived own legendary presentations on development and permanent changes in Schwitters. In order to let it accessible become deliverable and other interpreter, Schwitters looked for nevertheless over many years for appropriate possibilities of fixing it. Shape wins the work therefore in three different forms: as performance, as pressure version and as clay/tone carriers.

In this tension between improvisation, completion, and different shapes to exceed in the complexity of topics, layers and parts as well as in the consequence, borders the Ursonate is comparable to the Merzbau. Schwitters called it its most comprehensive and most important poetic work. The Merzbau was Schwitters lifework â it was a massive 3d sculpture consisting of relics of old friends in small cages. One sculpture was started in Hanover, when the war started he had to leave the first Merzbau, he later started a new one in his exile in Norway. That was later destroyed by accident. A reconstruction of the sculpture can now be seen in the parish museum in Hanover. The reason why the Merzbau is comparable to the Ursonate, is that in both cases he used scraps, bits and pieces gathered from literally everything to make his art â it was both non-sense that made sense. Both comprehensive and complex â he developed them all through his life, making changes as Schwitters changed personally.

Looking in to the chaos: Why Dada was influential on todayâs art
On the one hand Schwitters was focusing on the Gesamtkunztwerk, but on the other hand â one could say that Schwitters was simply art. A master propagandist and businessman, leaving stickers everywhere he went with the words âJoin Dadaâ, âAnna Blumeâ or âMerzâ. He sold his collages to everyone he wanted to â even if they didnât want to buy them, Schwitters is said to have had a very persuasive nature. When he performed his poetry people often burst in to hysterical laughter, but he continued any way. Maybe he wanted people to laugh, that is never to be revealed. But when such things happened he turned his voice up to volume ten, continuing to perform his art. I think this is something that says it all. His methods of working was later adapted (or reinvented) by many artists who got a lot more credibility for their work, and I think that works like the Ursonate is still valid as a original piece of art today. Dadaism has often been called anti-art because of its âI donât care if you think if this is art or notâ attitude. But the techniques used in most dadaist work is highly sophisticated. Schwitters can seem to be on the brink to madness sometimes with his schizophrenic style poetry â and maybe he was a little mad. But if one look closer on such works as the Ursonate one will see a highly structured and well made piece of music! âDada is our style of the time â that does not have any style â do you understand?â â Schwitters
âThe Ursonate was my fatherâs reply to make a melody out of something that was
spoken rather than being played by instruments.â â Erik Schwitters

Dadaism was a movement that happened between two wars. In many ways it made a path for art saying that it was okay for art not to be understood â art can also be anti-art. Art was to be created for its own sake â not by some conformist ideas and a rigid set of laws and ideas. Dadaism reflects in many ways the free human being â driven by nature rather than laws. Kurt Schwitters was seen as a outsider in many ways, and even though his art was self-classified as Merz â and the tension between Merz and Dada was significant, I think it is important to see the two movements as one. The scrapbook method is still used today, in plunderphonics and sampling. The ideas of gathering everyday material and reusing it is found in music concrete â comparable to Schwitters way of gathering any material that had a nice surface, or something appealing and putting it together in a context again. Whereas Schwitters decomposed sentences from magazines and other texts to create his popular poem âAnna Blumeâ, people like John Oswald with his plunderphonics are decomposing popular music and putting it together in a new context. Who knows what would have happened if Schwitters had access to the same technology as we do today? If we look close enough â we can see aspects of Dadaism, Merz, Anti-art and the automatic poetry in newer contemporary art: Music as a process often uses a set of mathematical rules to build its music upon (the Ursonate by Schwitters can be analysed in a similar way), Plunderphonics (as described earlier), Acousmatic art (the Merzbau can be said to be a similar concept, but with other objects than sound), Stockhausen with his early electronic works uses non-sense and manipulation of concrete sources â and adopts the same art for arts sake attitude â and the list can probably go on for longer. The Dada movement has probably had way more impact than most people, and even artists of today realise! I would dare to suggest that the whole avant-garde movement as we know it today, has strong roots in Dadaism and Futurism.

NOTE!! Please note that the argument / conclusion in this essay is not quite finished!

References
http://www.soroptimist.de/kshome.htm (A Kurt Schwitters tribute page)
http://www.kurt-schwitters.org (Parish museum Hanover)
http://www.roland-collection.com/rolandcollection/section/18/563.htm (Norwegian documentary - 1991 on Schwitters with English subtitles)

Re: Quiet Concern..

guyd — Thu, 18 Mar 2004 19:43:08 GMT

Dear Andrewdust:

As I promised, I have reviewed your short story and taken the liberty of making suggested corrections. Again, I want to congratulate you on a well written document. You have real talent that you should continue to develop. I would suggest that you purchase "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk and E.B. White. It costs only $7.95 here in the US. Below is my rewrite of your story, followed by some general suggestions.

___________________________________________________________________

Quiet Concern

By Andrew Dust

A friend of mine is leaving today[--]the greatest friend one could wish for[--] and I suppose this explains my heartfelt sadness for the occasion. Occasions usually require gifts [and above all]â(Omit.), whether [they] be weddings, birthdays or Christmases[.] The going-away gift is the most important and consequently the most difficult to consider. After all, what gift could strike that tall golden chord of superlative intimacy[,] and how does one pay tribute to something as rare and immortal as genuine friendship? This is what James and I had and it is [he]â(do not use italics to add emphasis.) who is leaving.

The first time [that]â(Omit.) I [ever]â(Omit.) saw [James] - when I was fifteen â he seemed to appear out of nowhere, as if his existence [were]â(Use the subjunctive in stating conditions contrary to fact.) by mistake, [the result of a peculiar cosmic imbalance]â( I would leave this out. Itâs a little too much for your reader, a bit of overwriting.). Standing on the playground wall, his back arched and his hands to the sky, he proclaimed at the top of his voice something about disregarding fear or knowing only the ambition of oneâs passion - I canât quite remember because heâs told me so many other important things over the years. Everyone decided he was mad, including [me], [and was promptly removed by the dinner ladies whom I recall nattering about Coronation Street, or some such television soap, in that understanding womanly tone.]â(I donât follow your thought here. Rephrase.)

It was later that I discovered he shared my interest for writing[.] I [happened upon] him one time in the school library scripting a play[,] and I [took the opportunity] to start a conversation. I dawdled over a few ideas of my own[,] and it was as if Iâd lit a firework. He considered my suggestions with an inspiring enthusiasm[,] and I saw those insatiable blue eyes sparkle like bulbs of electricity for the first time. His fantastic ideas [burst] out of mine like the wild branches of a tree[,] and when he spoke[,] his whole body leapt with such excited animation that we were soon asked to leave. We marched out side by side[,] and our selfish conversation raced through the corridor â [through the years]â(a non sequitur. Rephrase or omit.).

Frequently weâd have tea at Jamesâ house. It was always a sad journey there, passing reams of dripping terraces and faceless dog walkers wandering up or down the long slope through town under the grey clouds of England - but that was all soon forgotten as I stepped through his door. We [sat]â(avoid the passive voice) with bowls of soggy cereal discussing the prospects of putting on a play or some other glittering adventure. Heâd frequently ponder over the idea of running off to America; I would remain quietly reserved.

I remember when we laughed at the disappointment of that hopeless British mission to Mars, [Beagle 2], and then laughed harder when Americaâs [Rover] landed successfully and lit our television sets with a warm red glow. Together we imagined Bruce Willis clinging [to] the side of the shuttle as it shot through the spotlight stars like a bullet[--]the adorable [Beagle] being caught in [stampeding]â(I donât think this is the right word, but not knowing for sure what you mean, I hesitate to recommend another one. Rephrase.) [Roverâs] path[,]â(Use the ellipse to indicate that something is left out, not as a continuing thought. Use comma instead. If you use an ellipse it should be three spaced period . . .) then rattling along through empty space like [aluminum] can caught in the wind, [teabags for parachutes]â(omit. Donât overwrite.) Those were he best times[--]the times we could laugh without having to worry about where in space we [ourselves would]â(this seems to be the best word order.) end up.

(I would switch over to dialogue here.) Once Jamesâ dad asked me about my school subjects and how I was [doing]. He nodded politely as I told him [about the] university placements Iâd been offered, and then he glanced at his son[,] who turned his head away indifferently. He asked me about the career I wished to pursue. Unlike James[,] I had recently grown [ashamed] of [talking about] my writing ambitions[,] and answered, âsomething in economics.â James then picked up his pen and paper and walked up the stairs as if he were uninterested in the conversation; I on the other hand felt [too weak to stand](Really? Your reader will not believe this. Your reader will think this an overstatement. Use something like âand I on the other hand felt rejected or abandoned or deserted.)

Sometimes of course [James sprinted]â(avoid passive voice) over to my house. Usually Iâd be sitting in my room, half engaged in studying some tedious textbook and half worrying about how James was going to get through his exams. Thereâd be a violent knock at the door[,] followed by the rumble of legs lumbering up the stairs[.] Heâd fall into [my] room[--]some new script flailing madly in his hand like a diamond heâd dug up the world for. Heâd push my books aside and slam down the treasure in front me. Eventually a regretful period began during which Iâd carelessly skim through his work[.] I didnât have time for such things anymore.

After school we saw less of each other. Rather than head to [the] niversity[,] I accepted a job in a sales department for a school uniform franchise, and James moved to a small flat on the other side of town where he said heâd find the solitude he needed. My [job] was both boring and demanding[,] which is the worst [kind of boredom], [let alone a fulltime position]â(non sequitor.). Iâd catch myself staring at the empty white gaps of the computer monitor wondering how James was faring or trying to remember how his eyes looked on that day in the library.

Around seven months ago, [while day-dreaming] time away in the office, I received a telephone call from Jamesâ dad. Politely he explained [his concern] for his son[.] [âJames,â he said, â[will] not answer the telephone [or open] the door to his flat.â He [asked me to] pay him a visit[,] since I was a close friend [and James] might speak to [me]. When I got there[,] I was greeted with silence[. In a] panic I threw my weight against the door, which detached from its hinges more easily than I had anticipated[,] and I fell to the [floor] with a mighty crash. I found myself lying in a confused snow of paper and rubbish[,] and there before my [sorry]â(Chose another word.) eyes was James[â figure]â(Leave out.) lying under the windowsill, shaking and murmuring quietly in a drunken fit of [despair]. I lifted his thin body into my arms, carefully stepped through the spread disarray of sheets, and lay him in his bed. [His eyes were dull and glassy with red cracks forming at either side; they swirled despairingly[,] looking for some stable warm object to rest upon]â(Overwriting). I drew the curtains.

Collecting and organising his scripts from the floor was a mighty task, much like raking leaves and then attempting to pile them in the order [in which] they fell, so I took a week off work. Some sheets made perfect sense while others were mad incomprehensible scribbles of rage and frustration. Slowly it came together. I rewrote areas and left him notes of my own ideas and after a few days James recovered. He didnât [want to talk to me], so I left wishing him [good] luck.

That was all some time ago now[,] and I hadnât heard from him much since. It was yesterday morning that I received a call around nine-thirty[,] and after picking up the [phone, I thought at first] it was Jamesâ dad again. To my surprise it was James himself[. After his initial greetings[, he explained] in a rushed and joyous tone that a production company in America [wanted] to meet him [regarding] a play heâd recently finished writing. I offered my congratulations and said Iâd see him off - at this he sounded suddenly disappointed. Refusing to explain why, he hung up.

Since that moment Iâve been lost in deep forest of thought. Now however, as I walk through the tall glass doors into the airport, I know what gift suits the occasion. I pass through the masses of people who rush needlessly about and then swing my bag onto the conveyer belt as if casting [it] off. I spot James and we embrace because we are old friends. Side by side we walk through the tunnel and find our seats on the plane[. Eventually], after a few coughs and splutters from the engine, the plane lifts effortlessly into the air.

I look out the window; at the never-ending sky and know that in the far distance through the obscure grey clouds, past the ghostly fields of squashed housing and cold cups of tea are the bright shining golden lights of another land, and that am facing their direction. James does not gaze through the window; he sits with his eyes closed and arms folded in rest, his script tight against his heart. He knows exactly what it looks like; he has +seen it in his most vivid and happy dreams.

________________________________________________________________

Andrew, you have a tendance to "overwrite." I quote from "The Elements of Style":

"Rich, ornate prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating . . .." Get a copy of "The Elements of Style" and read the whole section.

Use figures of speech sparingly. You border on the overuse of the simile and metaphor.

Go back through your short story and prune out the unneeded adverbs and adjectives. Your writing is a bit "purple." Learn to write with nouns and verbs, not with adverbs and adjectives.

Remember, a dash is not one dash but two.

All in all, you have a good short story. Rewrite it a few times, remove unnecessary words, prune our unneeded adjectives and adverbs, don't overwrite, use similes and metaphors sparingly, and you are on your way to delighting your readers.

Guy