The below has been sent to the Walking Artists Network. Good to see us headlining above London!
‘Here are more details about the events across the UK currently planned for Terminalia: Festival of Psychogeography 2018 held on Friday Feb 23rd 2018
http://terminaliafestival.org/#events
- 10am, Stroud. Radical Stroud: Terminalia Festival Walk
- 11am, Seasalter, nr Whitstable, Kent. Elspeth Penfold: Walking with The Waste Land
- 1pm, Aberystwyth. Roger Boyle: Terminalia – An Aberystwyth Celebration Walk
- 5.30pm, Leeds. Beating the Bounds Walk – Circular walk around our boundary of Leeds
- 6.30pm, London, Nathania Hartley: Tapping Into The City: Group Walk – Stratford
Many thanks and I hope you have a Happy Terminalia!
Tim Waters
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10am, Stroud. Radical Stroud: Terminalia Festival Walk
The folks at Radical Stroud have a walk planned for Stroud involving three very different interactions with boundaries and landmarks: spatial, temporal and linguistic.
1. Meet at the Upper Lockkeeper’s Café at 10am when Jon Seagrave will explain how the shadowy operatives of Stroud & District Psychogeography and Deep Topography Commission are attempting a ‘subjective remapping’ of the town, asking for YOUR assistance in locating the unseen energies that shape and guide our everyday actions here in the bosom of the Five Valleys. Where did YOU have your first kiss? Where do YOU go when you want tranquillity, or fancy a fist-fight? Help identify Aggression Hotpots, Enlightenment Nodes and Knee-Trembler Clusters! Ritual Pilgrimages and Fertility Dances may result!
2. Robin Treefellow will take us on a guided walk to Woodchester Roman Villa where we will slip through all manner of wormholes of Time.
3. We will then walk up Water Lane to the long barrow at Selsley where Stuart Butler will take us on a brief history of swearing: the boundaries between the sacred and the profane; the elemental and excremental; the physical and the psychical; by Janus and …
Robin Treefellow will also talk of the two names of this barrow: The Toots and the Blacklow – it was the site of the old Saxon hundred moot called Blacklow Hundred. Folk still like to gather there!
We will finish with a toast to Faunus.
Please bring food and drink to share….And so to home.
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11am, Seasalter, nr Whitstable. Walking with The Waste Land
On Friday the 23rd of February, members from the walking group Walking with The Waste Land and their friends will be conducting a walk from the Sportsman Car Park in Seasalter, near Whitstable, in Kent. We will meet at 11a.m. in order to catch the low tide at 11.47.
On this walk we will walk to “Mick’s post” from here we will experiment with some low tide mud walking, using knots in ropes to record the experience.
We will then return to Mick’s post where where we will tie the knotted ropes to Mick’s post in a symbolic ritual of the celebration of Terminus.
Mick’s post is a white post in Seasalter which has been erected near the sea wall to indicate the boundary for the digging of bait in the estuary.
Images from these walks will be posted on Twitter @womenwhowalknet @elspethpenfold, using the #Terminalia hashtag. To find out more about Elspeth’s walking as research please visit her website blog: http://www.elspeth-billie-penfold.com
If you would like to attend this walk please contact Elspeth: elspethpenfold@yahoo.co.uk
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1pm, Aberystwyth. Terminalia – An Aberystwyth Celebration Walk
There will be a celebration of Terminalia in Aberystwyth. Terminalia was celebrated in Aberystwyth in 2017 http://www.rogerdboyle.eu/Terminalia/terminalia17.html by a select group, and will be again in 2018. The town map is very clear to this day, and various historical sources confirm the course as:
Castle Point, South to Tan Y Cae, Along to Heol Y Bont, Dan Dre, Chalybeate Street, Baker Street, Alfred Place, Crynfryn Row, Marine Terrace, King Street, Y Ro Fawr, Castle Point
While the walls are no longer visible, their route is easy to trace. There were gates at Heol Y Bont, Great Darkgate Street, Eastgate and Pier Street, which will be noted as part of the tour. http://www.rogerdboyle.eu/Terminalia/Aberystwyth_2_w.jpg
Meet at 1pm, Castle Point (at the sea wall). The tour takes less than 30 minutes. This year we will travel clockwise, in opposition to last year. More details about the walk.
Some words of wisdom are available, http://www.rogerdboyle.eu/Terminalia/walls.pdf that enthusiasts might read in advance. Organised by Roger Boyle.
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5.30pm, Leeds. Beating the Bounds Walk – Circular walk around our boundary of Leeds
5.30pm Route planning, dowsing and map browsing for a strict 6pm departure from the bar at Wharf Chambers Co-op Club . 2 hrs (easy). Bring treats to share, flowers to leave and alcoholic or soft drinks to keep you warm! With events, interventions, and special performances from local artists. Led by Tim Waters
A slightly different format to past years, we will find, in addition to the medieval stones, our own boundary markers of the city. Using crystal dowsing techniques over maps in the bar beforehand participants will plot out a route to follow within the city centre. Walkers will then head out to explore the divined places and examine whats there and uncover boundary indicators. Once done (or after a set amount of time), examining our new boundary markers and the map, we will head inwards to find the centre. At each newly found marker, we shall celebrate the boundary with snacks, drinks and flowers, do please bring some to share!
We’re happy to report that 2018 finds all the medieval boundary markers of Leeds, the bars, marked with blue plaques and/or uncovered. Our actions over the years has been successful! This year we will seek in addition to explore the city by finding new boundary places. The medieval boundary stones marked out the limits of the medieval city, and the entrances and toll booths for animals and trade. Terminus is also the god of non physical boundaries such as time and seasons and relationships. How has the city changed from ancient times – can we ask our unconcious minds where these new marks would or should be?
Beating the Bounds: Additional Interventions and Performances
Simon Bradley http://hud.academia.edu/SimonBradley will perform a guided tour of his “Pocket Museum of Displacements” at a location along the walk.
Anzir Boodoo https://twitter.com/anzrboo will perform a traditional Roman blessing at a suitable spot along the walk – possibly including an invocation to a Roman river god.
Meet 5.30pm at Wharf Chambers bar http://www.wharfchambers.org/ to be part of the essential dowsing, divination and route planning activity. We will leave the bar at 6pm sharp.
Event is free, just turn up. Tickets would be nice, they are not required but help us plan numbers. Tickets via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/397708697352784
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6.30pm, London, Tapping Into The City: Group Walk – Stratford
Tapping Into The City looks at our movements through private-public space in the city, the impact of urban surroundings on us and our relations with each other.
Come and join in this live art piece – a group walk around Stratford – one of London’s most overtly regenerated areas and centres of privatised-public space (Westfield Stratford City, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and East Village are all within walking distance).
Friday 23rd February, 6.30pm. Meeting point – at the bottom of the Meridian Steps (the stairs leading up to Westfield, next to the bus and underground station and opposite Stratford Centre).
Nathania will explain the piece and then we’ll walk together for an hour or so, simply moving as one through the city space, listening to its sound and the sound of our feet. Afterwards we can retreat to a warm pub nearby. Ideally we’ll wear shoes with pennies stuck to the soles.
All welcome! Free, but please book on Eventbrite to secure your space – https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/terminalia-festival-tapping-into-the-city-group-walk-stratford-tickets-42866867956
Further info and updates on event page https://www.facebook.com/events/1700941356611797/
Tapping Into The City Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/tappedcity. Also view the project video on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/186335190
Contact info, project and other works – nathaniah@gmail.com / www.nathaniahartley.com
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Other Participations
Direction South West: Ursula Troche will be celebrating Terminalia, moving from London space into Torquay space, presenting her work at The Art of You Exhibition at the Artizan Gallery in Torquay, you can read more about her work for the show on Ursula’s blog: https://colourcirclesite.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/its-in-the-south-west/
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Call for events is still open so if you wish to run an event or participation for the day, let me know
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Terminalia is a one day festival of walking, space, place and psychogeography. Terminalia is the festival of Terminus, Roman god of boundaries and landmarks so if there was ever a god and festival for psychogeography this would be it! Events have been run on this day since 2011, and is programmed by you and website hosted by Tim Waters.
Read more: http://terminaliafestival.org/
Swearing Through Time
I have to confess that I’m not loath
To swear the occasional oath,
To utter an imprecation,
Or a shocking execration;
Swearing comes naturally to me,
A semantic field of obscenity,
A lexicon of profanity:
A logorrhea of filth,
A diarrhea of diction;
But let us stop for a moment and ponder
On these two words:
Obscenity and profanity;
Obscenity and profanity –
The different sides to swearing:
Swearing the truth, an oath –
For Christians, not taking the Lord’s name in vain,
Not profaning His name,
And then, the other side of the debased coin:
Obscenity – downright vulgar, bad language,
For just as cleanliness is next to Godliness,
So filth and obscenity are cheek by jowl with the Devil,
And these two tropes, the profane and the obscene,
Dance a pas de deux , a dialectic of truth and falsehood,
In a Song of Innocence and Experience,
And Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained,
Where Heaven and Hell are conjoined
In a history of swearing and cursing:
The marriage of the elemental and the excremental,
The celestial and the scatological,
A state of beatitude, a harmony of opposites,
OMG, FFS,
God Damn It,
In short:
Holy Sh*t.
But none of these expressions are to be taken literally,
Of course; the agreed meanings are not shared
In a dictionary denotative way,
Instead, associatively, connotatively,
Figuratively,
I hope you agree, you bunch of w*nkers,
Sorry, I mean walkers.
But what of swearing on the Holy Bible,
Taking an oath,
The boundary between God and Lucifer:
By God’s Bones,
Jesus Christ,
Go to Hell,
Malediction, blasphemy,
Truth and Falsehood,
Lies:
The Devil’s Work,
The Devil Take it,
Do not bear false witness,
Are you telling the truth?
Would you swear on the Bible?
The New Testament can be ambiguous
About this whole matter of swearing,
Of swearing a holy oath –
Here’s the Gospel according to Matthew:
‘But I say to you,
Do not swear at all,
either by heaven, for it is the throne of God,
or by earth, for it is his footstool …
anything more than that comes from the evil one.’
Which is why, in Medieval times,
Obscenity was acceptable,
But not ‘Zounds’, ‘God’s wounds’,
‘By the blood of Christ’,
‘By God’s arms’,
‘By God’s nails’, and so on,
Profaning the sacred could harm God Himself,
It was believed,
In a reversal of the Eucharist and sacrament,
Which is partly why the Lollards – associates
Of John Ball and the Peasants’ Revolt,
Found swearing on the Bible problematic,
And, later, the Quakers, too, rejected all pledging of oaths.
But with the decline of feudalism,
The rise of capitalism,
The consequent increase in legal contracts,
Litigation and oath taking,
The increasing secularization of society,
So obscenity replaced profanity
As the devil’s work,
With euphemism and bowdlerization,
To cap it all in the nineteenth century,
Until the demotic tongue of twentieth century war:
In the First World War,
‘F***ing’ was used so often, that it lost all
Associative or literal meanings,
And merely meant that ‘a noun is coming’,
As in ‘Get your f***ing rifles’,
A real emergency would entail
A succinct and expletive deleted,
‘Get your rifles’,
And a good job, too –
Imagine Wilfred Owen and Dulce et Decorum Est
With the line,
‘F***Ing gas! F***ing gas! A f***ing ecstasy of fumbling.’
Iambic pentameter goes right out the window,
Although there is a new and emphatic repetition,
I suppose …
And so to the Second World War,
And the end of our story,
This is a history,
Not a modern commentary,
So we will not be addressing social media,
Hate speech,
Or the reported first use of the f-word on the BBC:
The mythology surrounding Ken Tynan in November 1965:
‘I doubt if there are many rational people in this world to whom the word “f***” is particularly diabolical or revolting or forbidden’ –
In passing, note how he used the adjective ‘diabolical’,
He knew what he was talking about,
But no, we end with
‘F*** ‘em all!
F*** ‘em all!
The long and the short and the tall;
Fuck all the sergeants and W.O.I’s,
Fuck all the corporals and their bastard sons;
For we’re saying goodbye to them all,
As up the C.CO.’s they crawl,
You’ll get no promotion this side of the ocean,
So cheer up my lads, f*** ‘em all!”
And so we end with the voice of the working class male,
And of George Formby and Vera Lynn,
Voices that helped bring socialism in 1945,
But today, the lesson is over,
No more History today,
No more psycho-geography on the timetable,
The bell is ringing for us to go home.
Thank Christ for that,
I hear you say.
Inspired by HOLY SH*T
A BRIEF HISTORY OF SWEARING
Melissa Mohr
OUP
