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The Footnote and General Geekery

Wed, 2 Apr 2008 00:17:16 +0100

So I am about to engulf myself in a storm of writing that will mark the last blast of academic assignments for my foreseeable future. I'm all about writing (even when I am annoyed about having to do it to deadline) and so I happily geek out on the quirks of language and authorship.

This morning, as I was eating breakfast, there was a program on Radio 4 about the footnote: its history, use, effect on author's voice, value to investigation, and interesting examples of all of the above. The program was tongue-in-cheek, and they had a really nice variety of views and tidbits to offer. While it may seem a bit random to do a radio program on this, it's actually not the first inspection of the footnote I've come across lately--in the course of writing an academic book catalogue, I recently discovered "The Footnote: A Curious History," which embarks on a mission quite similar to this morning's program.

So while I was listening to this, I realized that when I write, I never use footnotes. I was pondering why on Earth this would be, since as a reader I really enjoy them, and as those of you that have gabbed with me may notice, my thoughts are quite prone to taking diverging tangents simultaneously even when talking. Frequently, there are just too many bits of information, and trying to squash them all into a linear progression with a neat beginning, middle and end is really hard, and even superficial--so the footnote is a really excellent way to bring back the option of further exploration.

The Radio 4 program then exposed the reason for my lack of training in the use of footnotes: in the name of standardizing academic annotation, the MLA standard officially declared the footnote dead a few years ago. The MLA standard says that if it's important, it should appear in the main body of the text, and if it isn't, leave it out--roughly. This was how I was taught to write, at least from high school on, and so footnotes were never part of academic writing for me and were in fact actively discouraged.

If you think that this is a rather ridiculous thing to devote a blog to, read Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series and imagine the violence that would have been done to his humor without all of those tangential thoughts. I'm just realizing, having been spurred to think about it by this morning's breakfast education, how much of my own writing has been reduced as I slowly and painstakingly combed through my own over-long essays, trying to make vast topics simple and neat straight lines when they really shouldn't or couldn't be and chucking out valuable ideas and research along the way.

Booking?

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:13:45 +0000

Quick news flash: I have decided to part company with Taste of Cairo agency, so any future booking inquiries will reach my new management team through hq@kimberlymackoy.com

More exciting news coming soon... Sorry for the major disappearance from communication, been thoroughly wound up in a ton of real-world doings that keep me far from cyberspace! But really cool things are afoot. :)

Hope all is well with you!
Kim

Tribalondon!

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:22:54 +0000

As usual, I’m in the midst of a flurry of action! I’m teaching two workshops at Tribalondon and preparing some special treats for the big show on Saturday night. I’m making some new costume items especially for Tribalondon, and chatting with people about some exciting collaborations on the horizon. I’ve also got something up my sleeve for March Saqarah. More news on that as it comes...

Also, the new class at the Urdang Academy is going very well! I’ve just gotten the details up on the Classes section of the website, so if you’ve been waiting for a new evening class to join this one is a good bet. The structure is a six-week course, and I teach a choreography and all the little moves that its composed of week after week.

I’ve also had the pleasure of teaching the guest course in Brixton for Anna this winter. The ladies in that class are a lot of fun, and have been very patient with the logistics of me getting to Brixton through hell and high water--thanks!

Okay, short and sweet for the moment. I’ve got a pile of sewing and whatnot to attend to!

My adventures this summer

Wed, 8 Aug 2007 17:52:54 +0100

Sometime back in April, I noticed that my progress into summer was going to be hectic. From the beginning of May, there was an exam every week; the following week, I went off to the US for a while, and upon returning had a gig, teaching and loads of wonderful folks in from out of town. I went to Blackpool for Raqs Britannia, I went to Eastern Haze, I designed a ton of stuff and I worked out some new stuff to choreograph and teach.

Honestly, it has been non-stop. It’s now August, and the American school kid in me is panicking a bit, since back in the States this is the beginning of the end of summer. Thankfully, I am now in the UK, where such crimes against summer are not committed, and I still have two months before I need to be back in the academic groove full-swing.

So far, I’ve been really lucky to meet a ton of amazing people in the midst of all of this insanity. A much-too-rushed trip to across San Francisco, Denver and Missouri got me caught up with a lot of my favorite people from the States. I got to catch a class and dinner with Frederique (after walking *for miles* up Telegraph after a map mishap, grab drinks with my beloved friends in Berkeley and San Francisco, and take some amazing shots at the beach with the lovely and incomparable Sophie. (See above, and everywhere else I’ve sent a pic recently. Thank you Sophie!!) In Colorado and Missouri I got to see my family for the first time in years. It was so amazing to see everyone again, and I was shocked when I realized that it’d been so long since I’d last been in the same room with some folks... With some people, time doesn’t seem to pass between visits, the relationship just goes comfortably on pause when you’re not around. On the other hand, people growing up and changing seems to happen at a disturbing pace!

There was so much I wanted to do, and more hanging out should have been done, but time was limited and our schedule was intense. At the end of it, James and I had each been on nine planes in two weeks. However, in defense of what seems a massive violation of my principles regarding environmentalism, carbon footprints, etc., this was the first time in two years that I’d been on any planes at all, the last time being when I arrived in the UK.

At Raqs Britannia and just before, I got a chance to catch up with Rachel, Kami, Adore and Moria, which fun, though I didn’t get to spend much time with anyone other than my hotel roommates and a couple of other key folks. The schedule was hectic! In the last workshop of the weekend, Kami mentioned that at these big weekends it’s hard to remember to do everything (like eat, sleep, drink water) when you’re also running around to workshops, performances and trying to catch up with people you haven’t seen in a while. Totally true--I was pretty damn thrashed by the end of it all. I helped kill a Domino’s pizza in cold blood in the car riding back to London, and it was the sweetest food of the gods I’d ever consumed. Or so it seemed at the time, in my desperation.

After that, my awesome cousin came to town, and we drank an obscene amount of “magic water” and painted London red. Amanda, come back any time, and bring Peter. We’ve got trouble to stir up.

The major highlight of Eastern Haze was the unexpected company of my delightful friend Emma, and the glorious surprise of the awesome Chimaera fire performance crew. They were so badass, and I love them dearly. Their show was tight, the people involved are rad, and they adopted us in the midst of complete disorganization and chaos at the hands of festival staff. And I’m so incredibly grateful. I’m thinking of baking them a cake or something. :)

...

I’ve made it my mission this week to get my website updated to a reasonable level, since it’s been sadly neglected during this whole crazy ride I’ve been on. I think it’s now almost there. Next week, I’m hoping to get my little shop open and do a few other bits here and there, but until then I think it’s still in pretty good shape.

This weekend there’s going to be a fantastic party up in Cambridgeshire that’s devoted to tribal in its many stripes. I’m really looking forward to this! I’ve posted the details over on the Shows page. Drumming, dancing, drinking and carousing... My kinda scene. :)

For next time... hopefully more than just updates--I aspire to avoid the blog entries that read like laundry lists of past activities, but sometimes it’s gotta happen like this.

Breaking into the blog biz, here...

Sun, 4 Feb 2007 18:53:40 +0000

Wow. Two months have gone by since James wrote about being a happy nerd and having the website up. And only just now am I writing a blog entry here to follow it up.

However--I have been writing elsewhere, and adding content to other corners of my World Wide Wildness. I’m going to add some links to that stuff in the “About” section here on the site so that those updates don’t pass unnoticed, or so I don’t have people following one disconnected train of thought without knowing what other madness I’m up to.

I have a few major projects in the cards I’ve set for myself, and one of them is to retrospectively add journal/blog entries here to build a more interesting or coherent picture. I’ve had one hell of a journey in the past five years, and through most of it I’ve kept track of my thoughts, if for no more reason than to lay my mind out and make some sense of the past and present for the sake of moving forward with a clear sense of my tangent. Or tangents. Maybe trajectory is more like it, since that word entails more flexibility than one eternally extending straight line.

I’m not generally very direct in my movements, as those around me can surely attest.

Additionally, I reserve this blog as a place to speak my mind and write what I like. I’m not going to go forward fearing the opinions of those I know and love; basically, if you should find yourself offended, take it as an opportunity to understand something more about how I work or how the world around me does. My orientation is generally moral, centered on environmental well-being over individual high ground, spiritual but soundly suspicious of religion proper, and the people and culture swirling around me a beautifully diverse and challenging. I will say from my own experience that where I am at now it a profoundly different place than where I was ten years ago, and how I’ve gotten here has had a correspondingly profound impact on my thought processes.

But you’ll see all that unfold in time. Email me in the event of controversy, and remember the power of Google, Wikipedia and the browser “back” button.

Here we go.