procedures —
see notes and recollections, 9 for schedule of who presents what, when.
Our first “assignment” was from Thea : journaling : Write down what you do in one day, and include the date... (due Thursday 10 November)
this Thursday, we will graffiti template houses provided by Madison.
On Thursday, JM read aloud a passage from a diary (this connecting with Thea’s assignment to us all), that passage found in “Goethe’s Advice for Young Writers” by Johann Peter Eckermann (in The Paris Review August 31, 2022) : link
Here is that passage —
He began by asking me whether I had written any poems this summer. I said that I had written a few, but on the whole had not felt in the right frame of mind for poetry. To which he replied:
Beware of embarking on a great work. This is the mistake that our best minds make, the very people with the most talent and the fiercest ambition. I made the same mistake myself, and I know what it cost me. There was so much that came to nothing! If I had written everything that I perfectly well could have, it would have filled more than a hundred volumes.
The present demands its due; the thoughts and feelings that crowd in upon the poet every day need to be put into words, and so they should be. But if your mind is taken up with some great work, nothing else can get a look in; all other thoughts are pushed aside, and you cannot even enjoy the ordinary pleasures of life. It requires a vast amount of exertion and mental effort just to shape and organize a great whole, and a vast amount of energy, plus a period of uninterrupted peace and quiet in one’s life, to get it all down on paper in one continuous draft. But if you have picked the wrong subject to start with, then all your efforts are wasted; and if, furthermore, having undertaken something so large, you are not fully in command of your material in some of its parts, the whole thing will be unsatisfactory in places, and the critics will take you to task. So what the poet gets for so much effort and sacrifice is not reward and pleasure, but only stress and the undermining of his confidence. But if, on the other hand, the poet attends to the present moment each day, and writes with freshness and spontaneity about whatever comes his way, he is sure to produce something of value; and if, once in a while, something doesn’t work out, then nothing is lost.
JM also provided copies of (and to people in the room, links to) this article in The New York Times —
“Colleges Face Generation of Students [the Pandemic] Left Behind” (November 2, 2022) : A1, A13
the same, online, is
“The Pandemic Generation Goes to College. It Has Not Been Easy.
Students missed a lot of high school instruction. Now many are behind, especially in math, and getting that degree could be harder.”
online link (paywall; but "gifted" link was sent earlier)
pop-up Japanese tea houses (Chashitsu okoshi-ezu) : link
this in indirect relation to Madison’s flat template houses, and some aspects of her project (community, interaction, exchange, art for everyone, everyone an artist, etc).
for reference, re: Thea’s journaling assignment —
Georges Perec, An attempt at exhausting a place in Paris (1974)
will bring in on Thursday, but can also be found :
link
a short wikipedia page is devoted to that book : link
Perec has come up before.
also see this very good conversation between two very interesting writers —
“Alternative Routes: A Conversation with Lauren Elkin” by Claire-Louise Bennett
The Paris Review (October 12, 2021)
link
“At the core of Elkin’s work is a commitment to noticing, paying attention to the everyday and the communal places we share and move through. Inspired by the cataloguing methodology of Georges Perec and Annie Ernaux’s journal keeping, No. 91/92 : A Diary of a Year on the Bus is a thrillingly intimate work.”
Robert Shields and other (obsessive) diarists : wikipedia
more, diaries, from/at The Paris Review : link
aside —
apologies for not getting to book that Thea brought in; will see it on Thursday.
some language, from discussion of re: Josh’s Catalyst edits 1, 2 and 3 —
liquid, watery, in water; thick versus thin; fluid; aeration; space between the (sonic) molecules.
later, occurs to JM : as if sea rises, and what was once connected becomes discrete islands (of sound)
all seems highly dramatic; let there be less dense portions, pauses of less sound or even silence punctuated by individual points of sound; no film (or few, at any rate) are at constant high pitch.
let the paper (and ink that bled through, filtered by several layers of paper) be a compositional tool.
John (remote, mute but via text chat) presented photographs of pink Puma’s, out in the world (park, cemetery). Iron fence; leaves; the strikingly beautiful back of a chiseled gravestone. These images struck JM as driven by aesthetic concerns — they were beautiful — and leveraged the elegant design of the shoes, their pink/purple coloration, their curves, the shadows cast by different elements (e.g., shoe laces), and the relation of all of these factors to the setting.
Continue !
Katie showed new photographs (through paper aperture): screen saver art she had made; art by someone else; and electrical conduit on wall. Time to use these, rather than (or in parallel with) making more.
What comes to mind: books, maybe two, each with — how many? six? &dmash; images, plus text (probably facing pages). Text is what? could be metadata; could be personal information, even (and even likely) in fragmentary form. Might be Munsell color terms; chips too.
dimensions? A5
If book, print out.
Thursday —
Katie showed two books, one printed, the other from google drive. Discussion about cropping (JM thought unnecessary, even counterproductive in this instance, as the images are results of a kind of experiment, that should not be manipulated further); typography (all same weight, italic, etc. — an opportunity lost for subtlety); and positioning/size of the “Munsell chip” (too large, seemed to be stuck in middle of page, out of embarrassment at empty white space). We also discussed the cover (generic).
Some chalk-on-slate scribbles below, to refresh memory.
Stacey —
continuing discussion of hands and what is in them. hands as basket, net, to capture some (but not all) of what drops down, like blossoms and leaves.
Thursday —
We looked at more hands, some of members of Stacy’s family, some directed upward, others downward; some in middle of vertical rectangle, others lower or higher in that space. JM responded to how all of these read differently; he also rambled on about how the hands might be receiving, rather than or in addition to giving. How kindness may involve receiving, being receptive, simply listening. How receiving might be an instance of kindness. And we continued to consider the open (but partly cupped) palms as a kind of receiving basket, that might catch some — but not all — of what falls from above. (JM mentioned the religious concept of grace, as he understands it, which is a gift, to be received, not to be earned or purchased or striven for).
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