Re: letters

From: Phillip White (Phillip_White@ceo.cudenver.edu)
Date: Thu Aug 09 2001 - 14:47:42 PDT


Bill, thanks for the letter / newspaper article. it was a good read!
yesterday i went for a very long walk down to the central part of denver
when i came upon a skaters' park which i had never known was even there.
i read the rules with a new sense of enlightenment after your field notes
about rules, and noted that while there were 18 rules posted, most were
admonitions or suggestions. for example it was a suggestion to wear pads
and/or helmets. interesting to me as well was the fact that small bikes
(wheels no larger than 20 inches in diameter) and skates as well as
skateboards were acceptable. the hours posted for use were from 5:00 a.m.
to 11:00 p.m. it was a large park i thought, roughly in the shape of
triangle, 400/450 feet on each side in length. in the center was a large
picnic pavillion where several families were sitting at tables and eating.
 I made rough estimate counting about 100 kids (ages eight to
twenty-eight, say) making use of absolutely every possible surface. what
most intrigued me that that the construction of the park - a wonderfully
smooth cement - was nearly all sunken into the ground - so that skaters
would suddenly streak up out of the ground, hover in the air as they did a
180 - not always successfully - and then swiftly descended back down into
like a series of inverted cups and bowls. some wore helmets, some didn't
- the greatest common denominator appearing to be the younger kids wore
helmets, and the older didn't. the general activity seems to be one of
individual practice, practice, practice. i sat on a wall and watched for
about thirty minutes all the while remembering (voluntarily) bits and
pieces of your fieldnotes - and something i think that Martin Owen had
written about skateboarders some months ago.

 thanks, Bill.

phillip
   
* * * * * * * *
* *

The English noun "identity" comes, ultimately, from the
Latin adverb "identidem", which means "repeatedly."
The Latin has exactly the same rhythm as the English,
buh-BUM-buh-BUM - a simple iamb, repeated; and
"identidem" is, in fact, nothing more than a
reduplication of the word "idem", "the same":
"idem(et)idem". "Same(and) same". The same,
repeated. It is a word that does exactly what
it means.

                          from "The Elusive Embrace" by Daniel
Mendelsohn.

phillip white
doctoral student http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~hacms_lab/index.html
scrambling a dissertation
denver, colorado
phillip_white@ceo.cudenver.edu



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