Lichtenbergianism: Chapter One, part 2

Posted on by Dale

As I work my way through the text of my putative book on the creative process, you might like to read the rest of the text so far here.  Also, the rest of my meditations on the process here.

 

So what does the Lichtenbergian Society actually do? We meet around the fire pit in my back yard, we drink, we talk. We have our Annual Meeting on the weekend before or on the Winter Solstice. We go on Retreat in the fall to a cabin in the mountains. We share and discuss issues online, mostly in our secret Facebook group.

That’s it.

Then where does this book and its philosophy come from? A very odd thing happened after that first meeting in 2007: despite our claims of being committed to procrastination, every single active member of the Society became incredibly productive. We’ve produced books, plays, musical pieces, countless blog posts. Careers have blossomed; some have changed completely.

Our annual goals[1] have gotten stronger and stronger, and often we achieve them.

How?

It was my honor to work with the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program (GHP) for nearly 30 summers, rising to the position of full-time director of the program, a position I thoroughly enjoyed for the summers of 2011-2013.[2] That last summer, two Lichtenbergians—Turff and Jeff A.—took a week’s vacation to come visit, Turff because he had attended a similar program in Tennessee, and Jeff because he had helped supervise part of the theatre majors’ audition process for a couple of years; both wanted to see the program in action.

Since we already had four other Lichtenbergians on campus (myself, Jobie, Michael, and Mike), I posted a Lichtenbergianism seminar on the afternoon activity board for students and whipped up a brief presentation on the history of the group and Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. The rest of the session was simply each of the Precepts in an elegant font on a white background, and the assembled Lichtenbergians talked about how they used that precept in their creative work and in their careers.

The room was, to my surprise, packed with kids, and the presentation went so well that I wish we had videotaped it, if for no other reason that writing this book would have been a lot easier. After it was over, the non-educator Lichtenbergians expressed amazement that “the kids were taking notes!” Of course they were, I said: #1, that’s who they are; #2, this is very important information and it’s the first time they’ve had it laid out for them. I myself began this process at GHP with my painting teacher Dianne Mize; this is the beginning of that process for these kids.

That’s when it occurred to me that our little circle might have something to offer the world. This book comes from that thought.

Lichtenbergianism is a philosophy we take mighty seriously. For a Lichtenbergian, nothing is more shameful than getting right to work and doing All The Things. It shows a lack of moral fiber, we think, not to be able to avoid one task or another at will. Only slackers like Pablo Picasso, Johann Sebastian Bach, or Anthony Trollope never take a day off.[3]

It sounds completely counterintuitive, but Lichtenbergianism is in some ways like the description of Alcoholics Anonymous in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest: a rickety structure that shouldn’t work, but it does.[4]

Lichtenbergianism is not a prescriptive set of rules or procedures that, if followed, will make you creative. It’s not a way to become rich and famous, nor to quit your day job. This is not an instruction book.

Instead, Lichtenbergianism is a set of attitudes, of framing, within which it becomes easier to produce… something… anything. These attitudes/precepts give permission for the creative person to blunder[5] their way through the creative process as a means of achieving personal understanding/satisfaction. And to write that novel. Eventually.

None of the Precepts are new. We are not reinventing the creative process here. Lichtenbergianism is making no claim of originality or exclusivity to any of its components. We are shamelessly STEALING FROM THE BEST.

—————

[1] see RITUAL.

[2] GHP was a four-week (originally six-week) residential program for gifted and talented high school students in all fields. I attended the program as an art major in 1970 and, as we say in GHP-Land, it changed my life forever. The level of intellectual, artistic, and personal empowerment provided by the program can hardly be believed.

[3] Picasso created nearly 148,000 pieces of art over his 75-year career. Bach composed cantatas for three years’ worth of church services—that is, 209 surviving cantatas, and that’s ignoring the rest of his output. Trollope wrote for three hours a day, producing 47 big, thick, Dickensian novels; if he finished a novel before the three hours were up, he just pulled out a blank sheet of paper and started the next one. Do you really want to be like these guys?

[4] citation needed—still waiting on Daniel to get me those page numbers…

[5] see Appendix C: The Invocation

Lichtenbergianism: Chapter One, part 1

Posted on by Dale

As I work my way through the text of my putative book on the creative process, you might like to read the rest of the text so far here.  Also, the rest of my meditations on the process here.

Chapter One: Introduction to Lichtenbergianism

If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.   GCL, L.23

—————

What is a Lichtenbergian and why does it have an ism?

This is not actually a book about procrastination, as useful a strategy as it is.[1] Rather, it is how a loose-knit group of creative men in a small town upped their game by forming a society the purpose of which was not to create anything.

This book will not make you creative—you are already creative, just as every human is creative.[2]

This book will not free the artistic genius within you. It will not get you a record deal, a Tony Award™, or a one-man show at MOMA.

This book will not give you “creative exercises” to sharpen your skills. There are plenty of other books that are better for that and more specifically attuned to your own area of creativity.

This book is not even necessarily for those who make a living through their creativity. But if you are a Citizen Artist who thinks he/she might like to try writing a novel, or painting a portrait, or designing a labyrinth, but who keeps putting it off for fear of failing—that we can help you with.[3]

In late November/early December 2007, I sent out an email to a collection of friends noting that the Winter Solstice fell on a Saturday and would anyone like to join me around the fire pit for an evening of drinking, conviviality, and earnest discussion on the nature of art? Since that date was the weekend before Christmas, I was amazed when all six men accepted my invitation.

Most of us knew each other through my time at the Newnan Community Theatre Company, where I had been the artistic director for 20+ years. Not everyone had been there at the same time, so there was an interesting web of relationships from the very start.

All of us were creative in ways other than theatre—composers, photographers, writers, musicians—and moreover were creative in our careers as well—educators for the most part, but also a reporter, a computer programmer, even a clown.

All of us were at a point in our lives, both personal and creative, where we wanted to sit around a fire and talk about the nature of art with someone like us. In the intervening weeks, discussion on my blog ebbed and flowed, until one day I posted a (very negative) review of the Bavarian State Opera’s production of Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland.[4]

Discussion in comments became vigorous as we defended/trashed the “old forms” like opera and and debated whether they were still viable. Good times.

After a particularly vibrant exchange, Turff intoned, “To do just the opposite is also a form of imitation,”[5] and credited the aphorism to one Georg Christoph Lichtenberg.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

I headed over to Wikipedia to find out who this Lichtenberg chap was and discovered someone after our own hearts: an innovative thinker who puttered around in many fields; a physicist and an educator; an Anglophile, who on a trip to England once visited the widow of the great typographer Baskerville to explore buying the designer’s elegant typefaces.[6]

And then… there was this sentence:

Lichtenberg was prone to procrastination. He failed to launch the first ever hydrogen balloon, and although he always dreamed of writing a novel à la Fielding’s Tom Jones, he never finished more than a few pages. He died at the age of 56, after a short illness.[7]

“He never finished more than a few pages.” Here, surely, was our patron saint. I teasingly assigned everyone the task of writing the first chapter in a “Tom Jones-like novel,” and we were off. Within a week, The Lichtenbergian Society had a charter, officers, and an agenda for the inaugural meeting.

Our motto: Cras melior est. Tomorrow is better.

Tomorrow: the rest of the chapter

——————

[1] Instead, see The Art of Procrastination: A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing , by John Perry

[2] See Appendix B: The Arts Speech

[3] Of course, the professional who finds him or herself in the grip of “writer’s block” or frozen perfectionism will find a lot to like in this book too.

[4] We were in Munich visiting our son, who was there studying German.

[5] Lichtenberg is today most highly regarded in Europe for his vast collection of pithy aphorisms, scribbled down in his WASTE BOOKS.

[6] Simon Garfield. Just my type: a book about fonts. Gotham, 2012. p. 98-100.

[7] Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. (2015, June 29). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:35, November 10, 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Georg_Christoph_Lichtenberg&oldid=669229256

Oh, Republicans

Posted on by Dale

So here’s an odd thing:

U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday that President Barack Obama has politicized the Supreme Court nomination process by putting forward veteran appellate court judge Merrick Garland during a presidential election. (Reuters, 3/16/16)

He did what now?

Let’s back up a bit.  This is not news, of course.  The republicants have been pissing and moaning about how it tain’t fittin’ for them to even consider a Supreme Court nominee ever since Tony Scalia was found dead in a bed with a sheep.  Allegedly. [1]

Here’s Orrin Hatch, just last week, pissing and moaning:

“[Obama] could easily name Merrick Garland, who is a fine man,” he told us, referring to the more centrist chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia who was considered and passed over for the two previous high court vacancies.

But, Hatch quickly added, “He probably won’t do that because this appointment is about the election. So I’m pretty sure he’ll name someone the [liberal Democratic base] wants.” [Newsmax (!) 3/13/16]

Well, okay then.

So now that President Obama has nominated the very judge that Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Oopsies) has said would be the perfect nominee, we can all go back to wondering where Ted “The Zodiac Killer” Cruz was the day Scalia was murdered.

Wait, what?  What’s that?  Senate republicants are still pissing and moaning?  You don’t say!

They want the “American people to have a say” in the Supreme Court nomination by voting for the man who makes the nomination.[2]  Like we’ve already done.  Twice.

Not only that, but surveys indicate that a yoooge majority of Americans want the Senate to do its damn job.  Sounds like the people have had their say.

Republicants have also been pissing and moaning about how Democratic senators have said terrible, terrible obstructionist stuff about republicantist Presidential nominations in the past, which was just terrible.

And that’s what I really wanted to talk about today.

We have Sen. XYZ (R-Natch) pissing and moaning that Sen. ABC (D-The Past) once said they’d rather the Current Occupant nominate someone they like, so it’s only right that they (the republicants) refuse to consider any nomination made by President Obama, who has only 307 days left in office.  Why, that’s hardly any time at all left to do any real governing! [3]

So here’s what I always want to know when our republicant officials trot out the old tu quoque defense:

Are they saying 1) that what the Democratic Party did when they weren’t thrilled about potential SCOTUS nominees was a good thing to do and so they (the republicants) are going to do it too?  Or 2) that what the Democratic Party did was a vile and reprehensible thing to do and so they (the republicants) ARE GOING TO DO IT TOO?

I mean, there’s not really a third choice there, is there?

Do your damn job.

—————

[1] Tony Scalia was not found dead in a bed with a sheep.  That we know of.

[2] Or woman.  Heh heh.

[3] We may raise our eyebrows and purse our lips at this claim since Congress worked only 132 days in 2015.  That means President Obama has almost exactly 2-1/3 Congresses in which he must not try to accomplish anything.[4]

[4] Which, given this particular Congress, would not be difficult.

Lichtenbergianism: Why me?

Posted on by Dale

We’re working our way through the advice given in The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, and today we get to answer the question, “Why me?”  In other words, why am I the person to write this book?

As I said in the Introduction, I’ve been a creative person my entire life, and my entire adult life has been spent giving others permission to be creative people themselves.  Sometimes I taught the knowledge, skills, and attitudes directly; other times I’ve provided the framework for that to happen.

For example, one of my favorite memories at Newnan Community Theatre Company was our 1995 production of The Winter’s Tale.  Our Hermione was a professional actress from Atlanta, Equity even, whose personal goal of playing all of Shakespeare’s queens overrode her concerns about union rules.  (She did perform under an assumed name.)  She was amazing to work with and had a great time with us.[1]

At the cast party after our last performance, I was looking at my large cast running around enjoying themselves, congratulating themselves on a job well done, and Jen walked up and said fondly, “They don’t know they’re not supposed to be able to do this, do they?”

“No, they do not,” I replied.  And they didn’t.  They had no clue that tackling one of Shakespeare’s late romances was out of their league.  But I had provided the opportunity, and not knowing any better they jumped into the deep end without a second thought.  And they did it!

So my commitment to the creative process is absolute, and I’ve developed lots of mad skilz in encouraging it in others.

EGGYBP also asks whether I have anything to say that’s new and different about the topic.  I believe I do.  Lichtenbergianism (as I state clearly in Chapter One) is nothing ground-breaking; the creative process is the creative process, after all.  What’s new and different about the book is the whimsical attitude of the Lichtenbergian Society towards productivity. There are some hardcore ideas in the Nine Precepts, but essentially it’s a way for the reader to stop worrying about getting it done and to step back and see the larger picture.  There are strategies for getting started, there are strategies for TASK AVOIDANCE, there are strategies for stopping—but over all, it’s all about permission.

Give yourself permission to create.

—————

[1] I have two other favorite stories from that production.  Three—I have three more favorite stories.  Story #1: One reason I chose the play was its very unfamiliarity to audiences.  How would they take a sprawling play that they didn’t know anything about?  In the final scene, Hermione (who died in Act I) ‘s lady-in-waiting Paulina is showing King Leontes a statue of his dead queen.  She claims to be able to make the statue move, if he will pardon her use of magic.  Every night, when Paulina charged the statue to speak, Jen would do this amazing “come to life” bit, shivering up from her diaphragm as the statue appears to take a breath for the first time.  Every night I would watch the audience, and every night they were visibly shocked.  It was great.

Story #2: This was the first Shakespeare we did in full Elizabethan drag—and what a show to choose to do that on!  The play spans 16 years, covering two completely different fashion periods, and ranges from royalty down to peasants.  We went full out, ruffs and corsets and bum rolls and satin and brocade and everything.  A week or so before we opened, Becky Clark (goddess) came down from the second floor, where we had chained actors to sewing machines and ironing boards.  She was distraught.  We weren’t going to be able to finish the 60+ costumes before opening.  At that very moment, Act I began onstage: Leontes and his court swept on, everyone wearing as much of their costumes as they had available.  Becky was electrified.  “That is so beautiful! Yes, we can do this!” and went back upstairs to whip the actors harder.  (Corollary story: about a week later, we were running the show and I was out in the seats taking notes.  It was Act V, and on came Jennifer Sodko as some lord or other, and I realized with a shock that I had done something I had sworn never to do: create a complete and complex costume for a character who is seen once for less than a minute.)

Story #3: The show is long, very long, and late one night in the middle of Act IV, I heard a huge roar erupt from the bar next door.  I think it is a testament to the quality of the performance that none of the audience even tried to get out to go next door to celebrate the Braves winning the World Series.  (The cast, who had been following backstage, announced the win during curtain call.)

Story #4:  All right, I have four more favorite stories.  My son Grayson played Prince Mamillius.  He was seven at the time, and I needed a Mamillius who could read and whose television privileges I could threaten.  My mother volunteered to sew his costume, but she balked at putting on the codpiece—so that night at dress rehearsal I’m safety-pinning a codpiece onto my child when he objects. “What is this?”  I explained it was called a codpiece.  “What’s it for?”  I explained its origins as a “safety valve” from tight leggings in the late Middle Ages, but that at this time period it was merely decorative.  “Do the other actors who are male have one too?”  (That is literally what he said.)  Yes, I said, they all do.  He considered for a moment, then announced, “I can use this in my scene: ‘No, my lord, I’ll fight!’” and waved his little codpiece about. I proposed that that might be funnier to spring on his fellow cast members backstage rather than as a bit of onstage business.

The Lyles Rule of Outrageous Truthiness: a review

Posted on by Dale

So today on Facebook…

Never Would Have Guessed

WHY MR. ROGERS WORE
A SWEATER?

Captain Kangaroo passed away on January 23, 2004 at age 76 , which is odd,
because he always looked to be 76. (DOB: 6/27/27 )
His death reminded me of the following story.

Some people have been a bit offended that the actor, Lee Marvin,
is buried in a grave alongside 3 and 4-star generals at
Arlington National Cemetery His marker gives his name,
rank (PVT) and service (USMC). Nothing else.
Here’s a guy who was only a famous movie star who served his time,
why the heck does he rate burial with these guys?
Well, following is the amazing answer:

I always liked Lee Marvin, but didn’t know the extent
of his Corps experiences.

In a time when many Hollywood stars served their country
in the armed forces often in rear echelon posts where they
were carefully protected, only to be trotted out to perform
for the cameras in war bond promotions,
Lee Marvin was a genuine hero.
He won the Navy Cross at Iwo Jima There is only one
higher Naval award… the Medal Of Honor!

If that is a surprising comment on the true character of the man,
he credits his sergeant with an even greater show of bravery.

Dialog from “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson”:
His guest was Lee Marvin….
Johnny said,”Lee, I’ll bet a lot of people are unaware
that you were a Marine in the initial landing at Iwo Jima ..
and that during the course of that action you earned
the Navy Cross and were severely wounded.”

“Yeah, yeah… I got shot square in the bottom and they gave me
the Cross for securing a hot spot about halfway up Suribachi.
Bad thing about getting shot up on a mountain is guys getting
shot hauling you down. But, Johnny, at Iwo , I served under
the bravest man I ever knew… We both got the Cross the same day,
but what he did for his Cross made mine look cheap in comparison.
That dumb guy actually stood up on Red beach and directed his
troops to move forward and get the hell off the beach..
Bullets flying by, with mortar rounds landing everywhere and he
stood there as the main target of gunfire so that he could get his
men to safety. He did this on more than one occasion because
his men’s safety was more important than his own life.

That Sergeant and I have been lifelong friends. When they brought
me off Suribachi we passed the Sergeant and he lit a smoke and
passed it to me, lying on my belly on the litter and said,
“Where’d they get you Lee?” “Well Bob….
if you make it home before me, tell Mom to sell the outhouse!”

Johnny, I’m not lying, Sergeant Keeshan was the bravest man
I ever knew.
The Sergeant’s name is Bob Keeshan.
You and the world know him as Captain Kangaroo.”

On another note, there was this wimpy little man
(who passed away) on PBS, gentle and quiet.. Mr. Rogers is
another of those you would least suspect of being anything
but what he now portrays to our youth.
But Mr. Rogers was a U.S. Navy Seal, combat-proven in

Vietnam with over twenty-five confirmed kills to his name.
He wore a long-sleeved sweater on TV, to cover the many
tattoos on his forearm and biceps.
He was a master in small arms and hand-to-hand combat,
able to disarm or kill in a heartbeat

After the war Mr. Rogers became an ordained Presbyterian minister

and therefore a pacifist. Vowing to never harm another human and also dedicating the rest of his life to trying to help lead children on the right path in life… He hid away the tattoos and his past life and won our hearts with his quiet wit and charm..

America’s real heroes don’t flaunt what they did; they quietly go about their day-to-day lives, doing what they do best. They earned our respect and the freedoms that we all enjoy.
Look around and see if you can find one of those heroes in your midst.
Often, they are the ones you’d least suspect, but would most like to have on your side if anything ever happened……. Jus sayin

Oy.

The Lyles Rule of Outrageous Truthiness states that “Any time something from the internet sounds too outrageous to be true, then you can safely bet that it’s not.”

That can be boiled down to “Cool story, bro—whoa, if true!”

The above is a lovely story, born I guess of our national fetishization of the military.  Yes, it ends talking about leading children on the “right path in life,” i.e., kindness and gentleness.  But first, boys, make sure you shoot guns and get tattoos!  After all, they’re our “real heroes,” not men like Captain Kangaroo or Mr. Rogers.

And of course, the story is not true. Not in a single significant detail.

Jus sayin.

Lichtenbergianism: clerical work

Posted on by Dale

Today I got serious.  I emailed the permissions department of The New York Review of Books to start the process of securing the rights to use some of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s aphorisms as the chapter headers.

I use The Waste Books as translated by R. J. Hollingdale as my source.  Here’s where it gets funky:

  • Translation, introduction, and notes copyright ©1990 by R. J. Hollingdale
  • First published by Penguin Books 1990
  • This edition published in 2000 in the United States of America by The New York Review of Books, 1755 Broadway, NY NY 10019

Normally, the copyright holder gives permission for this kind of thing[1], but the problem here is that Reginald John Hollingdale died in 2001.  I have no clue who holds the copyright at this point—heirs and assigns, sure, but who are they?

So the permissions department at NYRB is as good a place as any to start.

Lichtenberg is now more famous today for his aphorisms (written in his waste books) than his scientific research.  (He discovered the principles of xerography, for example.)  It was one of his aphorisms, in fact, that led to the founding of the Lichtenbergian Society in 2007.

Here are some of them:

  • Every man also has his moral backside which he refrains from showing unless he has to and keeps covered as long as possible with the trousers of decorum. (B.12)
  • Be wary of passing the judgment: obscure.  To find something obscure poses no difficulty: elephants and poodles find many things obscure. (E.36b)
  • If you want to make a young person read a certain book you must not so much commend it to him directly as praise it in his presence.  He will then go and find it for himself. (F.141)
  • It is good when young people are in certain years attacked by the poetic infection, only one must, for Heaven’s sake, not neglect to inoculate them against it. (L.69)
  • It is true I cannot say whether things are going to change for the better, but what I do say is that things will never be right unless they do change. (K.102)

The epigraph for the book itself is “Let him who has two pairs of trousers turn one of them into cash and purchase this book.” (E.16)

The epigraph for the first chapter, “Introduction to Lichtenbergianism,” is “If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind.” (L.23)

You get the idea.  It’s kind of important that I get permission to use the material.[2]d

In other news, technology reared its ugly head this morning when my actual Lichtenbergianism file caused Scrivener to crash repeatedly.  I was beginning to panic at the thought that those particular 21,635 words were screwed, but (tl;dr alert) opening a copy warned me that the original file was “in use,” which of course it wasn’t.  A shutdown and a restart of the computer sorted out the confusion there, and we’re back in business.  Whew!

—————

[1] Which is how I got permission to set Nancy Willard‘s A Visit to William Blake’s Inn to music: she owns the copyright to the text and said “yes” with no hesitation at all.

[2] Or, of course, translate them myself, or have my German-Studies-degree son do it, or even my good friend Jennifer Schottstaedt who translates for money do it.

Lichtenbergianism: Good idea or the best idea?

Posted on by Dale

Today let’s look at one of the basic premises of writing a book and getting it published: do I have a good enough idea for a book?  We will pretend that we do not already know that this is the best book idea ever and explore the main questions as listed in The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published [hereinafter EGGYBP].

Audience. Who would be interested in reading a book about procrastinating and how to use that to become more creative?

Excellent question. As we’ll see when we go check out the competition, people really want to be more creative.  They are under the impression that reading a book will help with this—and who am I to disagree?  The current craze for adult coloring books, for example, feeds off this basic urge to MAKE THE THING THAT IS NOT.[1] I talk about the genesis of this book in Chapter One as springing from a seminar I did at the Governor’s Honors Program in 2013—if the students’ response to the Nine Precepts is anywhere close to representative of a populace hungry for permission to create, then I think the audience will be solid.

Who knows?  This could be a niche book that only my friends and family will plow through, or it could become one of those freakish trends: “Become more creative by not doing anything!!”

Competition. If we go and look for books on creativity, there is no dearth of available titles.  Why add this one?

Leave it to an independent bookseller (hi, Janet!) to immediately link to a book about the benefits of procrastination, apparently also written in an entertainingly humorous style.  Missed that one in doing my research.  However, in the overall philosophy of Lichtenbergianism procrastination is really just kind of a gimmick to hook the reader’s attention.  There are eight additional Precepts that form a framework for getting your work done.

Also, most of the other books on the creative process are focused on specific fields: drawing, painting, writing, etc.  Lichtenbergianism is a concept that is usable in every field—and not just in artistic ones.  You can increase your productivity through TASK AVOIDANCE no matter what your job, hobby, or avocation is.

We’ll put off Marketability, Authority, and Salability until tomorrow.

—————

[1] In the book, I intend to set all our Precepts and Key Concepts in small caps.  Since my blog doesn’t do that, I’ll put them in ALL CAPS.  Ugh.  Bear with me.

And now, for something completely different

Posted on by Dale

Liberal rants are fun and all, but I want to refocus my efforts here on the original purpose of this blog: whining about my creative efforts.  (Don’t worry—the liberal rants will continue.  How could they not, with so much to rant about?)

To that end, I’m starting a series of posts about the book I’ve been working on, Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy.  You get to suffer along with me.

This series will be a combination of excerpts from the book, moanings about my progress, and meditations on the advice offered in The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, which I picked up last weekend in Athens in my old friend Janet Geddis’ marvelous bookstore, Avid Bookshop.  Really and truly, if you live in the Athens area, you need to make her bookstore a regular stop on your route, because it’s lovely.  (There’s also a surprise about that purchase that I didn’t discover until I got the book home and started reading it; more about that later, much later.)

For those joining us from Facebook, please feel free to leave comments here rather than over there.  Your first one has to be approved, but after that it’s clear sailing.

I would start with some background, but since that’s Chapter 1, I’ll hold off.  So let’s start with the Introduction.

(For the record, this is a very scary thing for me.)

Cover.

(I just spent 20 minutes futzing with this image in order to avoid publishing this post. See how it works?)

Title page.

Copyright page.

Table of Contents:

  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • Chapter One: Introduction to Lichtenbergianism
  • Chapter Two: Framework
  • Chapter Three: 1–Task Avoidance
  • Chapter Four: 2–Abortive Attempts
  • Chapter Five: 3–Successive Approximation
  • Chapter Six: 4–Waste Books
  • Chapter Seven: 5–Ritual
  • Chapter Eight: 6–Steal from the Best
  • Chapter Nine: 7–Gestalt
  • Chapter Ten: 8–Audience
  • Chapter Eleven: 9–Abandonment
  • Chapter Twelve: 10–The Tenth Precept
  • Conclusion
  • Appendices
  • Bibliography
  • Index

Introduction

 

Allow me to introduce myself.  My name is Dale Lyles.  I am, for lack of a better word, retired.

Before that, I was an educator for 37 years.  Most of that time I was a media specialist, teaching kids how to find and use information both at the high school and the elementary level.  For my last two years, I was the director of the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program, a summer high school gifted program where I had worked for most of the 30 summers before that, about half of them as assistant director.

During all that time I was the artistic director of the Newnan Community Theatre Company for 20+ years.  I directed, designed and built sets and costumes, and acted with more than 100 shows there.

I was a choir director for more than ten years.

I sing and I dance.

I paint and I draw.

I compose.

I write.

I design.

I program.  (Yes, I can build and program a FileMaker Pro™ database to do amazing things.)

Overall, therefore, I think it’s fair to say that I am a creative kind of guy.  (I also create cocktails, one of which—the Quarter Moon—ought to be in every bar in America.)

None of this is to say that I’m any good at any of the above (except for the Quarter Moon—it’s really really good, you guys)[1,] but that’s not the point.  The point is that I have spent my life both creating and guiding others through the creative process, and I’ve learned a few things.

A lot things, actually.  I’ve learned a lot of things, and all of them point to my main idea here: you can do this too.

Who’s telling you can’t?  Let me give you a piece of advice right up front.  I call it the Lyles Eternal Truth About Actors, and I give this advice to any uncooperative or fearful actor: “There’s no such thing as an actor who can’t, only an actor who won’t.”

So if you want to write a symphony,  who’s going to stop you?  Getting it performed is another thing entirely and is outside the scope of this book, but no one can stop you from writing it.

No one can stop you from writing that novel, or forming a band, or creating a cocktail better than the Quarter Moon.[2] No one can stop you from blogging or taking photographs or painting or landscaping or whatever it is you would love to do but have been to afraid to start.

And the good news is you don’t have to do it today.  Or even tomorrow.  Procrastination is your friend.

By the way, it’s pronounced lish-ten-BERG-eeanism.

—————
[1] The Quarter Moon Cocktail: 1.5 oz bourbon, 1 oz Tuaca, .5 oz Averna Amaro.  Stir over ice, strain into old-fashioned glass over ice with orange peel garnish.  (You may also do it straight up in a martini glass.) The orange peel is essential.

[2] As if.

 

A brief encounter

Posted on by Dale

The other day I leaving the grocery store, and an older man was coming in. He was holding the hand of a young person, kind of grandchild age, maybe 13-14, and it was clear by the young person’s gait that there were some developmental issues there.

I say “young person,” because in the brief glimpse I had, I truly was unable to determine gender. Perhaps that was unimportant.

The child—and to avoid ungainly linguistic contortions, I am going to assign the pronoun “he”—was dressed all in black, black hair, eyeliner, and to top it all off, a black cape. He was committed.

It was not a particularly nice cape, just that almost-sheer velour material one gets in a plastic bag out at Party City. The child didn’t seem to have the attitude sported by most of our emo cadre, that sullen haughtiness that just dares you to stare or roll your eyes. This kid seemed a little wary, as if his outfit were camouflage that he was afraid was not quite enough to allow him to escape notice.

You can’t help but construct narrative, can you? Is this a look he’s seen and for some reason has taken on in order to “become” someone? Is it someone he admires? A musician perhaps? A movie character? Someone at school?

Does the (presumed) grandfather love this kid so that he willingly takes him to the grocery store in his freaky getup? Or does he cringe, knowing that most of the people in the store are going to be judgmental one way or the other?

All kinds of stories pop into and out of existence.

I will say that I am proud that my first reaction was to think that I should stop and say, “Hey, cool cape! Did you make it?” (knowing full well that he had not), just to validate his choices.

But of course I didn’t—I was on my way out, they were on their way in, and there are always too many variables to consider in such a split second. Would my approaching him give him a positive validation, or would it send him into an emotional tailspin? Would the grandfather appreciate the sentiment, or would I trigger some defensive response? What if I read the situation completely wrong and made it worse?

If I had seen them up and down the aisles of Publix and had time to figure it all out, I’d like to think I could have done a good deed by giving the kid a thumbs up. I’d like to think so.

Holy crap.

Posted on by Dale

I think that on the whole it is better if we don’t delve too deeply into the fever swamps of deluded rightwing conspiracies, but today a “friend” on Facebook shared a meme from Exposing Satanic World Government.  That’s a Facebook group, folks.  (I would like to say that this “friend” is a recent addition, and I do—I really do—look for signs of this kind of thing before I click on the Accept button, but sometimes they just slip by you, you know?)

Here we go, straight into the deep end.

Let’s start with an easy one.

—click for the original article—

This is the kind of thing that one usually gets: the government is out to get us, etc., etc.

Nothing new or exciting really.  Just your run-of-the-mill, take-a-standard-government-program-and-turn-it-into-ONE-WORLD-GOVERNMENT-WAKE-UP-SHEEPLE stuff. As one does.

But I would like to draw your attention to that first comment. The poor guy meant “patsies,” I guess.  Easy typo, or perhaps an autocorrect, but I’m comfortable thinking that he just didn’t know the difference.

This is the level of discourse we’re dealing with here. Literacy is not this kind of person’s strong suit.

I should say at this point that the whole group is purely Christian in its approach.  I think it’s part and parcel of the whole authoritarianism thing that has recently caught the attention of the pundits trying to explain why Donald Drumpf is leading the Republican pack—and is closely followed by the even bigger horrorshow of Rafael Cruz.

(Of course, the hippies have been making fun of Republican “strong daddy” types since the days of W, but just like the Iraq War it sometimes takes time for the Very Serious People to catch up.)

Anyway, this is the kind of group that seeks strength through Christ, and by that I mean pure, naked power, not the strength of quiet faith and good deeds that the wiser among us picked up in Sunday School.  Since they seek power, they see it everywhere.  Since they want dominion over the earth, they a) create a self-image of being righteous warriors, and then—because what good is a flaming sword unless you have someone to smite it with—indeed, why does the flaming sword even exist unless there were, of course, b) an all-powerful Enemy?

Once you have this mental framework in place, then every waking moment of your life is spent looking under the bed and in the closet for that Enemy.  Every. Waking. Moment.

What was it the man said?  “Seek and ye shall find…”?

—click to see the original video—

EVERY WAKING MOMENT, KENNETH!

The comment on this one is representative of many of the comments on this page, a kind of pearl-clutching fantod that reassures the commenter and the readers that yes, they are servants of the Risen Lord and all manner of things will be well.  I’ve written about this before, this curious split-brain thing of thinking that one is simultaneously on the losing end of this corrupt world and yet the victor.  I still don’t get it.

—Do click on this one—

Mercy.

I mean, these kinds of theories have abounded about the Beatles since the 60s, but it’s still hysterical to see all of them so tidily presented (and by a 24-year-old author!).

You may have noticed by now that there seems to be no dearth of websites dedicated to exposing the TRUTH to the world.  Once you start clicking, there is no end to them.

None of them explain why the Illuminati/Bilderberg/Freemasons/Satanists are taking their own sweet time in implementing the New World Order. You would think that our all-powerful overlords would have lost patience with teh sheeple and just taken over by now, but no, it’s clear they must get a kick out of teasing us with the threat of a nightmare future.

Again, I’ve written about this before, but it’s important to remember that this frisson of fear is a feature, not a bug, in these people’s worldview.  They wouldn’t see it that way, but their brains love that little tickle of terror they get when they imagine Satan just sitting there like a spider in a web.  They’re addicted to it.

Moving on…

 

Closer to home:

It all seems so clear now, doesn’t it?

I like the part about “intelligent people who actually understand socialism.”  This is something I have not noticed to be true in this election, especially from this kind of voter.

And the comments… The old “Marshall law” gambit: remember when the crazier liberals thought the same thing about W?  But this time… You know it’s true.

The energy expended by these people is incredible.  How do they keep it up when none of their fears are proven to be true and they just transfer the fear to something new? It exhausts me just observing it.

As for the “will of God” gambit, mercy, people, when are you ever going to think that perhaps God is working his spirit out through Barack Obama or Bernie Sanders or even, Cthulhu help us, Clinton?1

Spoiler alert: never.  It will never occur to them that God might be a liberal.  Or that she might not even care.

And if “our blessings will be just the same,” then why all this energy directed at identifying, exposing, and defeating the Satanic World Government?  I’m not sure what the point is, if nothing you do matters because God has his eye on the sparrow.

 

Last one, I promise:

—Really. There’s a video.—

There is a 15-minute video which I have not watched—nor am I going to—positing that Donald J. Drumpf is a high-ranking priest in the Satanic World Order.

This is not an isolated viewpoint.  Click through and a) read the comments; and b) check out all the videos recommended over on the side.

Jebus.

As I’ve said, folks, EVERY. WAKING. MOMENT.

Once you’ve committed to this mindset, the whole of the planet must be viewed through that lens, and everything must be made to fit the madness.  Donald Drumpf is just a egotistical bully?  Nonsense: he’s part of the conspiracy to elect She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.  The Beatles were a talented group of men who hooked into the zeitgeist of a world waking up to possibilities of not despising those different from you?  Crazy talk: they were puppets of a conspiracy so vast that it is capable of destroying all that we hold dear.2

Personally, I blame the Wachowski sisters.  Red pill/blue pill, my ass.

——————

1 Just to be clear, I am not a Clinton basher.  It’s just that she’s the current repository for all the irrational fear and hatred.  What do people think is going to happen if she’s elected? What on earth could it be that would make it better to vote for Trump or Cruz??

2 Because, really, who wouldn’t want to rule over a world that you’ve wrecked beyond repair?