Lies—why does it always have to be lies?

Posted on by Dale

I am connected on the Facetubes to several individuals who are—and I am being as kind as I can here—seriously whacked rightwing nutjobs.

Because I am trying to be a better person every day and in every way,  I generally do not respond to the crap they post about politics, but merciful Cthulhu they have gotten on my last nerve.

I present to you some of the stuff they have posted this week.

::sigh:: Who makes this stuff up?  It’s not true, it’s never true, and yet people post this crap all the time.  First of all, “beloved photo”?  Really?  Okay, sure, maybe members of the DAR all have this on their walls, I don’t know.  But it’s not even a good photo.

But again, who made this up? And why do people believe it?  That second question can be answered with “Because they want to preen their patriotic feathers.”  They are patriots; you are not.  “They hate us because of our freedoms.”  No, not really, and embracing chauvinism as a virtue is not very attractive.

But who made this up?

Yeah, I get it.  We can’t handle the truth.  For differing values of truth, apparently.  What does the geography and culture of the Middle East have to do with… I don’t even know what their point is here, other than they hate Muslims.  And yes, dear, you’re a racist, even though Islam is a religion, not a race, and socialism has nothing to do with the Nazi SS.  Those are your guys, not ours.

Stock photo of black woman.  √ Anti-Obama rant. √  Absolutely no basis in facts… √√

The idea that the “rest of us” are worse off than in 2008 is laughably false.  No, salaries are not where they need to be, but that ain’t because Barack Obama “gave away jobs”—how does that even work??  I think it’s a hoot that whatever rightwinger cooked this one up at least gives black people credit for paying taxes; their usual position is that Those People are moochers.

It’s a lie.  Cf., “I’m a racist,” above.

And then there’s Hillary.  There’s plenty that can be said about Clinton that is true1; why post absolute fabrications?

Created for a Photoshop contest.

Nothing in this meme is true.  Nothing.

And now we have the whole tsimmes about who poops where.  The ignorance and cruelty is astounding.

Oy.  You can see why I don’t respond on the Facetubes to these idiots.  Can you imagine trying to get them to comprehend, much less empathize with, those whose gender is not the same as their birth certificate? Why, it would be almost as hard as getting them to understand and admit that the problem they’re trying to solve2 doesn’t exist.

Would it be snide of me to mention that the individual who posted most of these also posts this:

Yeah, you’re right, it would be.  So I won’t.

—————

1 Check out any Bernie supporter’s Facetube feed if you don’t believe me.

2 Spoiler alert: they’re not trying to solve it.  They’re trying to fear-monger to get out the amygdala-dweller vote.

New(ish) cocktail: Honey Please

Posted on by Dale

I was looking through my cocktail notebook last night and decided to test one of my originals that I think I only made the one time.  It didn’t sound as if it would actually be viable; best to make sure, and if not, strike it out of the notebook.  ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS and all that.

As it turns out, it wasn’t an ABORTIVE ATTEMPT, but it was a SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION.  The original was simply American Honey and Galliano, but in a burst of inspiration I added Amaro Nonino to it, and now, pending further testing, it works.

Honey Please

  • 1 oz American Honey
  • 1 oz Galliano
  • 1 oz Amaro Nonino
  • 3 dashes orange flower water (optional)
  • basil leaf/lemon peel garnish

Yes, the garnish is a bit twee, but a little showing off never hurt anyone: make two slits in the basil leaf and thread the lemon through it.  If you have a classy triangular pick, stick that through there too.

I’m out of Amaro Nonino, so further testing is moot at this point.  More work is required.

Mousie Music

Posted on by Dale

The other day, the incomparable Berkely Breathed put up on his Facebook page the following strip:

His apology is directed to the equally incomparable B. Kliban:

This reminded me that years and years and years ago—the heyday of Kliban’s cat comics—a melody popped into my head for these lyrics.  It’s nothing like the cartoon would suggest, but it was catchy and enjoyed a certain vogue amongst the young people who hung about at the theatre in those days.

It has occurred to me that I ought to drag it out (of my head—it’s never been written down that I remember) and see if it would work for my “hero’s theme” for my Unidentified Music Project.  It’s certainly catchier than any of my ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS in the linked blogpost.  The trick will be to see how flexible it is for variations.  More work, as we say, is required.

Here:

“Love to Eat Them Mousies” | pdf |

P.S. To the estate of B. Kliban: I have no intention of using these lyrics in any way, so unsharpen your pencils and put your cease & desist letters away.  Your copyright is not threatened, at least no more than the intertubes has already threatened it.

About those goals…

Posted on by Dale

I’m using a piece of software called Scrivener to write Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy, and a very good piece of software it is, too.

One of the many tools it offers is the ability to project word count goals and to see how you’re doing in the current session.  If you tie your session goals to your putative finish date, it will tell you how many words you need to rip out in that session in order to stay on track.

Because of one Camping With the Hippies™ or another, I’ve been a bit slack in writing:

::sigh::

7,500 words for today in order to “finish” by tomorrow. That’s okay.  I have to reset my total word count goal upwards anyway: each chapter is working out to be around 2,000 words, and that’s before I go back and work in charming illustrative anecdotes from all the Lichtenbergians.

N.B.: I could too do it, if I wanted to.  So there.

 

Lichtenbergianism: Pitch perfect

Posted on by Dale

Today in our continuing book study of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published [EGGYBP], we look at the pitch.

There are two kind of pitches: 1) the elevator pitch, which is over by the time the elevator gets to the next floor, and 2) your long-form pitch. [p.70]

I keep trying to come up with a snappy elevator pitch:

  • “Art & Fear only funny”?
  • “How to Write a Novel in 30 Days for slackers”?
  • “Twilight, but well-written. And no vampires”?

Perhaps, as the authors1 also suggest, my subtitle is the elevator pitch: “procrastination as a creative strategy, or how I stopped worrying  and learned to love doing it wrong.”

“The Mouse Whose Name Is Time,” by Robert Francis—click to read the whole amazing poem

The long-form pitch is no less simple.  It’s supposed to be a paragraph or two, but still under a minute.

How about:

In 2007 a small group of creative amateurs founded a society dedicated to celebrating their procrastination and found, to their amazement, that their productivity improved. Now they share the secret of their success with nine “precepts,” ways to re-organize your thinking about how you create and why.  Sometimes counter-intuitive and usually amusing, their strategies distill some of the most obvious secrets of the creative process to free you from your own mindblocks.

Hm.  How about:

Sure, you can buy a book to help you cure your procrastination, but why would you? Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy frees you from the worry and the guilt—and shows you how to use your bad habits to become more productive in your creative life.  No matter whether you’re a writer, an artist, a composer, a programmer, a gardener, or any other creative type, the Nine Precepts of Lichtenbergianism will give you ways to rethink your creative habits and give yourself permission to succeed—by failing!

That’s better, and more in sync with the tone of the book.

Tomorrow is better!  That’s the motto of the Lichtenbergian Society, a group of creative men who bonded over their shared tendency to procrastinate and found that they became more productive because of it. Now Lichtenbergian chair Dale Lyles shows you how you, too, can stop worrying about your bad habits and learn to love your own creative process.  Whether you’re a frustrated writer, artist, composer, gardener, or programmer, you’ll find new ways to think about how you create and why, from Task Avoidance to Successive Approximation to Ritual to Abandonment—if you give yourself permission to fail, you give yourself permission to create.  It’s that simple!

One more:

Are you a creative genius?  No, only Mozart is a creative genius, and you are not him.  But you are creative—yes, you are, admit it—and you want to overcome your fears and your bad habits so that you can write that novel/paint that painting/compose that song/program that app.  Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy gives you nine Precepts, ways to restructure your thinking about how you create and why so that you can just get to work and create the work of your dreams. But not today.  Tomorrow is better.

And I’m spent.

—————

1 I keep saying “the authors” because it’s easier than typing out their names: Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry.

Dill.

Posted on by Dale

Yesterday, I tackled the Dill Plant That Ate Newnan again.

Before:

After:

This is the third time I’ve done this since it sprang back from the freezing cold this winter.  It is irrepressible. And it’s trying to colonize the butterfly garden in front of it.

No lie, I had to get the pruner to cut through the stalks,  and the frondage I carried to the street weighed about 15-20 pounds.  I suppose I should dig the whole thing up, but I don’t have the heart.  All I can do is cut it back down so that the sprinkler can get to the rest of the garden.

If you ever need dill, you know where to find it.

Lichtenbergianism: Titles? We don’t need no steenkin’ titles.

Posted on by Dale

From The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published [EGGYBP]:

A common mistake authors make is choosing a title that has a particular meaning to them but that no one else understands.

Well.

I mean to say.  Lichtenbergianism.  What could go wrong?

I will admit to having been told already that the title sucks and won’t survive an agent/editor/publisher.  I will resist while I can, of course, because the whole core of the book is how the Lichtenbergians became more productive through the use of the Nine Precepts (although of course the Precepts are ex post facto developments).

The subtitle of the book, I would hope, makes the purpose of the book clear: Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy.  My feeling is that the silliness of the main title becomes attractive when attached to the subtitle, i.e., the browser is distracted by the weird, incomprehensible title, then sees the subtitle and laughs, yeah, I need this book.

But I am not the expert, the authors of EGGYBP are, and they suggest a couple of strategies here.  The first is to create a “title pool” of words that could go into your title:

  • procrastinate, procrastination, procrastinating
  • create, creative, creativity
  • put off, hold off, postpone, protract
  • don’t start, tomorrow…
  • finish, finished, finishing

Then somehow you’re supposed to find that perfect title out of all those terms.  (They also suggest checking Google Adwords to see what will result in your book being found, but that involves creating an account which involves “budgets” and “payment” and all that stuff.)  Here are ten:

  1. Don’t Create, Procrastinate!
  2. Never Finish Today (what you can put off tomorrow)
  3. A [Poem]* Is Never Finished: *painting/song/novel/garden ( a riff on the Paul Valery quote)
  4. Be Creative… Some Day
  5. Be Creative… Tomorrow
  6. Hold That Thought! : a guide to creative procrastination
  7. Lord, Make Me Creative, But Not Yet (a riff on St. Augustine’s sly prayer about chastity)
  8. Tomorrow Is Better: procrastination as a creative strategy
  9. Back Burner Creativity, or Creativity on the Back Burner
  10. Moseying to the Finish Line: creativity is not a race

Okay, there are a few in there that I could tolerate were an agent to hold a book contract to my head.

Another strategy from EGGYBP is to “get lots and lots of opinions.”  I realize that anyone reading this blog has already had their brains infected by Lichtenbergianism, but try to forget that perfect title and give me your opinions in comments.  Who knows?  This could be that moment when Bugles Sang True finally became Gone With the Wind.

More herbs!

Posted on by Dale

Yesterday, another package arrived from The Growers Exchange:

Ignoring the scrawny citronella on the far left, there’s mullein and the acanthus-like cardoon, and in the back is the buddleia.

You will recall that previously I had purchased and planted new herbs, expanding the old herb garden.  (RIP, little borage, we hardly knew ye, and we certainly waited too long to ask Growers Exchange for a replacement…)

This batch includes two each of Buddleia, mullein, and cardoon, plus a freebie of citronella.

Mullein is one of those medieval medicinal plants, and it and the buddleia (aka butterfly bush) will go over at the side of the house where the privet hedge used to be.  They’re hardy and almost invasive, and that’s exactly what I need over there.

The cardoon, all of which is edible, will go in the new herb section. They tend to become invasive as well, so a) I’ll transplant new ones over to the hardy area; and b) I’ll start giving them away to you people, not that you’ve been any help with the Dill Plant That Ate Newnan.

So now…

Posted on by Dale

This is one of those posts I do after I’ve been away for a while, either vacationing or Camping With The Hippies™, in which I don’t really have a lot to say because I have too much to say.

Needless to say, I am behind in nearly everything: Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy, blogging about Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy, the Carnegie summer reading Minecraft party, visualization of William Blake’s Inn, labyrinth maintenance, all musical projects, and a couple of new projects: the Artist Trading Card Gang and looking at scoring a web animation series called Medievilry.

Euphoria, which is what the spring burn is called, was everything I needed it to be.  The saying is that you get the burn you need, not the one you want, and that was particularly true this time.  I know that it’s hard to explain the atmosphere of the burn—it’s part revelry, part journeying, part art, part music—and it’s especially hard when to explain since I tend not to share details, but I spent the five days more journeying than reveling, and it was a good thing.  Burning is not for everyone—I tell people that I go and camp with people “who are not like you and me”—but I find that the experience enriches my life.

I can share a couple of images, of course.

First, the labyrinth:

3 Old Men had a primo spot.  It is so prime that other theme camps did not bother to hide their jealousy of our cool arboreal arcade entrance, our shade, and our space.  I have told everyone that if I’m found dead in an alley, then the police should start with a list of TCOs1 as prime suspects.

Me, wearing a cool t-shirt:

This t-shirt is from a young friend, Brett Felty, for a movie he made called The World is Big and Scary.  (His production company’s website doesn’t seem to exist anymore.)  I bought the t-shirt as part of his Kickstarter project; I was struck by the monster’s resemblance to the Wilder Mann creatures—he has since told me that he had never seen the book or heard of the creatures.  I knew immediately that it would be one of my burn shirts, and so I took a photo to send to Brett.

I also got some work done.  I needed to get ahead of the production curve for this new Artist Trading Card Gang, and so I cranked out a handful of ATCs in my “Indeterminate Object” series.  Here is Indeterminate Object No. 4:

I liked this one so much that I decided to place it on the altar in the center of the labyrinth, where the hippies can take and leave gifts.  When no one had taken it before the Effigy burn on Saturday, I retrieved it for myself.

And yes, the Effigy burned:

Now, back to my regularly scheduled life.

—————

1 Theme Camp Organizers

3 Old Men: Euphoria… ready… set…

Posted on by Dale

I spent today packing for the burn, which means I went to my database and printed out a five-page list of over 160 items that I have to pull from here and yon and get them ready for transport.

Since I’m using Craig’s trailer, everything has to fit onto a 6×8 rectangle. Behold!

If you look carefully, you can see the blue rectangle I chalked down to plan ahead.  Up at the top of the driveway you’ll notice the trailer backed into the carport—a feat so impressive that I had to put out a call on Facebook to beg someone to come do it for me.  Even after practicing for 30 minutes in a large parking lot on Bullsboro, once I got to College Street I could not get the thing even to approach the driveway.  So much for Radical Self-Reliance!

Let’s look at it from the other end:

All the stuff in front is going in the car.  The tools and bamboo will go between the tubs, cushioned by multiple tarps.

Tent, kitchen, tables, canopy, fire pit, fuel, tools, labyrinth (three tubs), tiki torches, lighting, ritual items, musical instruments, food, clothing.  All there.

Turn, turn, kick, turn—yes, it will WORK!