Thursday, July 20, 2017

A Paradigm Shift

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This is the back cover of the most amazing book I've come across this year - maybe this decade.  It provoked (or should I say legitimized?) a kind of stream of consciousness experience that will most certainly affect this blog, and will likely affect a book I'm trying to put together (while badly afflicted with procrastination and distraction) but which I cannot write about further until after dinner. Hmmm, procrastination again?
There: I've had a bowl of granola with a banana, and now I can carry this story a little further.  I discovered this book during my end-of-May drive to Pittsburgh, PA, to see my daughter, the art professor.  This book, backside up, was on a table full of books and papers in her living room.  The words "writing the unthinkable" caught my eye.  I turned it over and saw the title: WHAT IT IS: The formless thing which gives things form.  Some sort of paradox?  It would have been easy to ignore this book because it looked so unconventional (euphemism for quirky?), but I already had a copy of Lynda Barry's Syllabus, so I was hooked. Since my mind is frequently racing all over the place, I am often told by others watching my work, my office, etc., that I need to get organized.  Then I claim that I am organized, despite appearances.  So, after another break - maybe even a good night's sleep - I will try to give form to the formless messages I got from this book.  As I write this, my mind frequently flashes on another interesting book I found this past week: Kerri Majors' This Is Not a Writing Manual, which definitely is a writing manual.  So,  I do think I need some sleep before I can give form to it all.  For one thing, a blog in this format is inherently linear, but the processes of thinking and writing I am alluding to definitely are not.  Will I be able to fit a round peg into a square hole?

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