Category: writing

Creating something every day for 365 days: the writing

Lichtenbergian Goal #5

Posted on by Dale

Lichtenbergian Goal #5: begin work on A Perfect Life, my proposed description of what it’s like to live a life like mine
Longtime readers may remember that last June I bought a huge handmade journal. My stated goal at the time was, and I quote:

I want to write a book called A Perfect Life. I want to document my life in general and in particular. I have a phenomenal life, one that by any standard on this planet is enviable. I am materially comfortable, my environment is great, my family and friends are wonderful, and I am intellectually and creatively alive. That’s what I want to do. Whether I will cast it as a journal, or essay, or fiction, I don’t know.
But I do feel compelled to start telling what it was like to live in this time, in this place.

I still do not know how I want to do this. But I think I need to begin. I have a dread feeling that I just need to fill the book, fill it completely, a patchwork of observations, descriptions, sketches, literal drawings, literally a patchwork on the page. Let the editors sort it out.

It will be my Red Book. Only different. (Not this different, although that would be a fun project as well. Lichtenbergian assignment, maybe?)

Lichtenbergian Goal #4

Posted on by Dale

Lichtenbergian Goal #4: write one good short story

I had ideas for three short stories last year and began working on one, but in true Lichtenbergian fashion never got beyond abortive fragments, plus vague outlines for the other two.

I’m not sure why I have this goal. I’ve never been a fiction writer. Sure, I’ve written fiction (Twelfth Night, New Day, anyone?), but it’s not something I feel compelled to do like art and music.

Yes, it was very flattering when Nancy Willard said I should write, but the very thought of struggling with characters and plot and style and language terrifies me in ways that I’m guessing would surprise most people who know me. (This is cool: when you do a Google image search for Nancy Willard, guess what the very first photograph is. Go look.)

So I’m not sure why I think I need to do this. More than likely it’s just my attempt to stake out territory in every single area of the arts. It’s a pissing match, not that anyone’s competing.

Also, as I prepped the labyrinth this past Monday, I found a cigarette butt when I was raking leaves. I’m pretty sure it came from a nephew who led some young relatives on a smores outing in the labyrinth on Thanksgiving evening, but still, it gives one pause when one’s house has been broken into, and before I knew it a narrative had formed in my brain.

Now it’s a challenge: can I take the rather nice idea for a story in my head and actually turn it into an effective piece of writing?

Lichtenbergians

Posted on by Dale

This past Saturday was the Annual Meeting of the Lichtenbergian Society, a top-secret organization for creative procrastinators. That is, creative men who procrastinate, not men who procrastinate creatively. We celebrate the virtues of procrastination. We are a veritable support group for procrastination. With drinking.

This Annual Meeting is one of the most important evenings of the year for me. Even though we gather often during the year and are companionable and argumentative, even though we have a website through which we communicate our ideas and passions, still this particular meeting stands out, because it’s the only meeting in which we have a ritualized ceremony.

We toast our genius Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, German physicist, aphorist, and satirist, and inveterate procrastinator. We submit Corroborative Evidence of our Claims, i.e., creative works the creators of which would have been well-advised to have procrastinated over a good deal longer. Then we Consign said Corroborative Evidence to the Flames.

Next comes the part that means the most to me. We have a journal in which the recording secretary has recorded each member’s Proposed Efforts the preceding year. The secretary reads out the list of what we thought we might accomplish this year, and to each we have to respond: “Accomplished” or “Cras melior est” (our motto, which means “Tomorrow is better”). After everyone has confessed responded to the secretary, and there’s a lot of discussion and commentary, we stand and have a silent meditation on the Year’s Efforts, followed by a silent toast.

This year, I am ashamed to say, I accomplished all four of my goals. Last year I was zero for seven, which is also pretty bad, but at least had the virtue of making me an exemplary Lichtenbergian. This year I felt cheesy, as if I had cheated somehow by choosing easy-to-conquer goals, and as if I had not set goals extravagant enough to be worth attempting. Success did not make me feel as if I had accomplished anything.

So in the next part of our ceremony, I was determined to challenge myself more. This is the Engrossment of the Proposed Efforts: each Lichtenbergian states for the record what he hopes to accomplish creatively this year. This is an awe-inspiring exercise, because you know that at the next winter solstice, you’re going to be confronted with your claims and have to acknowledge your success or failure.

After everyone is done, we have another toast, to the Proposed Efforts, followed by the agenda. This year’s topic was “compulsion and void,” revolving around the polar ideas that a) we are compelled by our nature to create, and b) we are confronted by the void which renders our creations pointless. How do we deal with these ideas as artists? And it may be that more toasts are made as the evening progresses. You get the idea.

What were my Proposed Efforts?

  • continue my painting, both the abstract Field series and my studies for the Epic Lichtenbergian Portrait
  • restart the 24-Hour Challenge, which to my surprise I had proposed last year to do only for six months, which is just about what I managed
  • compose one complete work, any description
  • write one good short story
  • begin work on A Perfect Life, my proposed description of what it’s like to live a life like mine
  • and in conjunction with all of the above, produce a lot of crap, i.e., produce boatloads of work

I think what I’ll do is blog about this for a couple of days. I need to write more anyway, and I need to set forth some ideas about this whole process and each of the particulars.

Goals

Posted on by Dale

Here we are, end of GHP and vacation, the beginning of the school year, one of those cusps that seem to demand that I set some goals, to figure out what I want to do next. I don’t know why, especially since these are no-brainers. It’s not as if I’m going to not do these things if I don’t write them down, but writing them seems to give them some legitimacy.

  • get back into the 24 hour project work. I have #12, #13, and #14 still to set, and they’re all three doozies. I really ought to try to come up with two more movements to go with the string quartet/bassoon piece.
  • get serious about my “Field” series of paintings, especially Seth’s commission
  • schedule Tai Chi time, and stick to the schedule. Grayson gave me a beginner CD for my birthday, and I’ve only looked at the first section once. The problem is finding time and space. But I must.
  • get serious about my ELP sketching, especially faces. Soon it’s going to be time to start sketching in paint as well. It has occurred to me that proficiency in graphite does not automatically transfer to gouache.
  • do some writing in the Neo-Futurist vein for Lacuna. The GHP theatre kids used the Neo-Futurist mold for their work this summer and it was a fascinating way to do theatre.
  • and of course the labyrinth needs attention: mowing, reseeding, repair, installation of the omphalos

That’s not too much to think about, is it? It does not include routine stuff, like cleaning my study or doing the final reports on GHP, or updating the WordPress software everywhere, or starting back up with Masterworks Chorale and Lacuna Group.

Confession

Posted on by Dale

I have a confession. I have egregiously sinned against my resolution not to buy anything. Well, in my defense, it is June, not that I have been perfect since January, far from it, actually, but this purchase today was the kind of egregious purchase I had sworn off.

Actually, the table easel-cum-paint-storage was also of the egregious variety. And all the boards to paint on, which I haven’t done yet because I’ve successfully distracted myself with the 24 hour challenge, those fit into that category as well.

But the downloads of Zoe Keating‘s two albums I will defend against all comers, and those who have heard this sorceress, entheogenically or otherwise, will agree.

Anyway. Today we all went to the Renaissance Festival and you can snicker if you like. The people-watching alone was worth it. Should have worn the Utilikilt for real. There was a booth of handmade journals, and we all know how much a sucker I am for journals. I’m not at all convinced these were handmade by the guy in the booth. He had a workstation all set up, and there was leather strewn about and all the tools of the trade, but I am not such a fool as to believe these were the real deal, especially since I have bought identical journals in other locales.

So, I bought this:

I included my hand in the photo for scale, because my first photo of it gave no sense of how large it is.

And it’s large. It’s a whacking great thing. Its size was part of its allure for me, as was the paper, which seemed less fibrous than the other, slightly less expensive journal I was also drawn to. I like writing in these with my fountain pen(s), but the really fibrous paper just sucks up the ink and bleeds.

I also liked this one because the paper is bound in a single signature rather than the four or five in the other one.

You can imagine what this cost. It’s not something I’m proud of, spending that kind of money on something so completely unnecessary in my life at this point, but something told me to buy it. I have learned not to ignore these somethings.

What will I do with it? I don’t know. I already have a journal in which I recorded all my Marriage of Figaro stuff, and another for the continuing adventures of William Blake’s Inn (which I need to drag out and update). I even had one that I started for generic creative endeavors, which does not include a lot.

Those are all of the handmade variety. I have a couple of commercial ones for other purposes, including one for all my Lacuna Group work and one for my sketches for the Epic Licthenbergian Portrait.

But this one? I don’t really know.

That’s a lie. I know what I want to do with it. I want to write a book called A Perfect Life. I want to document my life in general and in particular. I have a phenomenal life, one that by any standard on this planet is enviable. I am materially comfortable, my environment is great, my family and friends are wonderful, and I am intellectually and creatively alive. That’s what I want to do. Whether I will cast it as a journal, or essay, or fiction, I don’t know.

But I do feel compelled to start telling what it was like to live in this time, in this place.

Hey, if nothing else, it will serve as a distraction to both my music and my art.

A day off

Posted on by Dale

So it snowed yesterday, and of course the whole school system shut down. [I will have to make up this day, because as a day laborer I am paid to be onsite for 180 days, whether or not there are children to be taught or work to be done. But let that pass.]

I’ve gotten a lot done today, most of it involving driving back and forth to Michael’s no fewer than three times. Don’t ask. But the original plan for the labyrinth is now framed, as is the photo of the roller coaster where we spent our wedding night.

I piddled around with a short story that crawled into my head a couple of weeks ago. I’m not sharing anything about them till they’re finished, if ever. Short stories have not been my métier heretofore. It doesn’t have a title. We can call it “Swimming,” if you like.

And finally, finally, just a few moments ago, I began a painting that started bugging me on Saturday.

Here’s the deal: the New York Times offers for sale prints of photos from their archives. Here’s the one that jumped out at me:

It’s of skaters in Central Park, 1884. That’s the Dakota apartment house in the background, reigning in solitary splendor on Central Park West.

I don’t know why this idea popped into my head, but it suggested itself to me that I should clip this thing out of the newspaper, attach it to a board, and then paint over it, exploring its composition as an abstraction. What do you think?

Here’s my first pass:

Here are my thoughts so far: a large whitish field on the bottom half, blackish hieroglyphics scarring the surface. A hot gray stripe above that, cooler gray swath above that. Above that, I don’t know yet. Blocks of Prussian blue. Vertical scrapings across the cool gray swath. I don’t know about the Dakota yet. Browns will begin to figure into the composition at some point.

I’ve begun by simply blacking out the figures, then blocking out some items in Prussian blue. I’m of half a mind to leave the two men in the lower right corner.

Back to the painting.

Pass #2:

Now I’m curious about when the black marks down front are going to stop looking like humans.

Pass #3:

What am I to do with the Dakota?

Doodling, 1/29/09

Posted on by Dale

Many things to do tonight, starting with this post.

In support of our explorations over at Lacuna Group, Wednesday nights if you’d like to join us, and you really really should, I dragged out the 341 poem, which, if you recall, was the first thing that emerged during the 365 project.

It’s actually not bad stuff, and so I made a decision last night to work seriously on it for a while. I may not keep everyone updated as I did back in the day, but if something good happens you’ll be the first to know. You can read all the posts about the poem as it stands now here.

The first thing I have to do, of course, because I want this to be a thing I can work on diligently, is to give it its own Moleskine notebook. I’ve pulled out a small one from my music drawers and am in the process, as I work on other things during the evening, of painting a cover on it.

This is not exactly the waste book approach, but this is not exactly a waste book process. I can focus my “poem energies” in this one place. Or so goes my theory.

In other news, I have listened to John Adams’ Gnarly Buttons and John’s Book of Alleged Dances in the van for a couple of days now and can report on its status. (This is from the stack of CDs on my desk that I’m trying to whittle down.)

Gnarly Buttons is a little mini-concerto for clarinet and is very appealing in many ways. It has some back story to it, but I didn’t read that until I had already made my decision about the piece.

It’s rhythmically complex, almost excessively so, and scored for an extremely oddball assortment: English horn, bassoon, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass, banjo/mandolin/guitar, and two sampler/pianos who play all kinds of weird sounds, including at one point a moo. (That’s right, a moo.) However, the orchestration is deft and never uninteresting.

There is even actual emotion in several places. On the whole, I think Gnarly Buttons is a keeper.

I’m still unsure of John’s Book of Alleged Dances, a set of 11 short bits for string quartet and prepared tape. It’s not uninteresting, but after I’ve listened to it I’ve already forgotten it. I’m thinking I will not be adding it to iTunes like Gnarly Buttons.

Next up: Tenebrae, by Don Carlo Gesualdo, actual Renaissance prince of Venosa. Gesualdo felt no compunction to follow anyone’s rules, societal or compositional, and his music is usually described as “lurid.” It is good to be the king.

It’s official

Posted on by Dale

I am hereby canceling the Quiet Strength meditation series. Trying to jumpstart my writing was a good idea, but merciful heavens what a truckload of treacle that book is!

Just scanning ahead to find a topic to write about this morning, again, trying to get something out of my head and onto the page, was enough to cause permanent pursing of the lips and raising of the brows.

  • People-pleasing
  • Crisis and pain in relationships: relationships are like crabs; they have to shed their shells to grow; and then they’re vulnerable… ::shivers down the spine::
  • Men as brothers: actually quotes Whitman and encourages us, as we are “trained to pursue women,” to “actively pursue friendships with men.” Come onto the raft, Huck, honey. (Yes, I know, but icky!)
  • Wordless language: I talk to the trees.
  • The True Work: SHA, anyone? How about a podcast sitcom?
  • Wounds into gifts: bang that drum, honey.
  • Zaniness: “one of the most endearing qualities of men is our zaniness”
  • Search for the sword
  • Removing my armor
  • Side-by-side intimacy
  • Body wisdom and sexuality
  • Howling

And we’ll leave it at that.

Meditation: The false self

Posted on by Dale

I’m bored in a hotel, so I’ve picked up an old draft of a post of one of those wounded warrior meditations. Sorry.

Part of my problem with my source material is that so much of it smacks too much of “such a worm as I,” albeit in a new agey way, which probably makes it even worse. Take today’s topic. Please. [/rimshot] The point seems to be that “as boys, we learned we had to find out who others wanted us to be,” and then we had to become that person. “Now,” though, we’re ready to become our “authentic” self.

Feh.

I know that a large part of growing up is figuring out what societal norms are, and we ignore those norms at our own peril. I’m sure most of my male readership, and probably the female as well, knows all too well the pain of not conforming. If I cared what my bucking those norms has cost me in my life, it would probably drive me mad. What, don’t you think, as I do, that one of the reasons NCTC never gained traction amongst the power elite in this town is because it was led by me? And I was, well, just a little bit off?

Who among us does not understand that we are many selves, that our true “self” is this amalgamation, did you know that amalgamation was synonymous with miscegenation many years ago?, of selves, and that we do not, can not show our “true self” to anyone because there’s not a single such persona to be shown?

Yes, I show different “selves” to different people. I share different things with different people. I’ve told things to Marc that I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing with Jeff, and heaven knows Jeff and I have chatted about things in ways that would raise others’ eyebrows, and none of you knows the things I’ve told Ginny and withheld from you. And above all, there are the things that I’ve told no one, haven’t even put into private blog posts.

(Did you know there was such a thing? If you’re not the creator of a website, there could be all kinds of blogposts you never see, like little ghosts drifting between your reading, gazing knowingly out at you in your ignorance of the full measure of your host. So… back to your reading.)

So do I have a secret self? Dern tootin’. Does that make my public selves false? I cannot think how. I’m thinking that our wounded warriors have a problem with self in the first place. Grownups in the Lylesian sense don’t worry about that. (We worry about people finding our private blogposts.)

Meditation: From separation to serenity

Posted on by Dale

One reason I have not been faithful to the “daily meditation” thing is that the meditations in A Quiet Strength are just so sappy. I knew they were, and I figured I would either react to the sentiment therein or just use the title for my own purposes. But the overwhelming blue-ness of it all gets to me.

I know everyone is wondering how much I accomplished on the labyrinth today, and the answer is nothing. Coriolanus rehearsal all morning, of course, and then I got home and realized that there’s nothing more to do until I learn how to lay paving bricks.

Sure, Home Depot has instructions, but they’re mostly for nice, rectangular areas. Plus which, the actual installation, rectangular or not, involves skills and equipment I don’t have yet. One has to excavate the earth to a depth of two and a half inches, how exactly does one do that? The paving stone catalog says you then till the soil to mix in concrete to form a base. I’m not going to do that: too expensive, too permanent. Then everyone agrees you add an inch of sand, pounding into place with a pounder thingie.

I am under no illusion that this is a one, two or even three-day job. This is a year-and-a-half job. Either I pound that sand with a pec-inducing hand pounder, or I find a way to buy or rent a machine to do that. You can see the rental fees mounting up, but buy one? Sheesh.

Then the circularity of the thing. I know I have to buy/rent a bandsaw to cut curved stones. Again, sheesh.

Then there’s the actual purchase of heaven knows how many tons of paving stones. Yes, tons. One pallet of stones will cover 144 square feet, and it weighs over 2,000 pounds. I don’t have the math skills even to estimate how many square feet this thing is. Kevin?

My interior argument is to go ahead and get started, and by October 25, I can play freaking Aufidius with my shirt off. Let’s see if that happens.

So, anyway, today’s meditation.

The gist of the book’s little screed is that we’re all wounded fellows, don’t you know, who have been abandoned or left to die or something, and that if we just stand tall, and I mean that as a Shakespearean pun, so snicker away, we can all avoid the trap of drugs and destructive behavior. Or something.

You see what I mean?

All right, let’s give this a shot. Grown ups, in the Lylesian sense of the word, figure out soon into their adolescence, if not before, that we’re all alone in this together. Further, it does no one any good to bewail our lonely state in the universe. After all, what does the universe care for our wailing?

(Side note: if there is a God, the same applies. What does s/he care for our wailing? Even if she’s an all-loving God, her attitude would have to be like those of us who have slept through our baby’s insistent screams. At some point, God figures, we have to figure out for ourselves how to get through the night.)

Yes, we’re alone, and yes, it hurts. That’s why I have my family, my kitchen, my music, my blog, Lacuna, the Lichtenbergians. That’s why we have Art. We can amuse ourselves with these connections while waiting for the universe to come to our rescue. Which, as grown ups, we know is not going to happen.

So that “serenity” arrived at by the poor hurt creatures in A Quiet Strength should be the natural state for all of us grown up men. It’s false, of course. I don’t think we can ever shake that sense of wanting to be whole with the universe, but as long as we know that we can pass the time with all these distractions, and that that’s what they are, then I think we can figure out how to get through the night.

Now I think I’ll go light a fire in the labyrinth and sip my martini.