In an effort to clog the arteries with even more pretentious pablum, I thought I’d suggest a way to think about both this blog and our meetings. I want to tempt you to think of them both as sites for creative play and performance. At Governor’s Honors we have developed a rehearsal process for creating original work which reflects, in part, my experiences working with experimental groups in Washington, DC, eons ago. And those experiences and methods, to embed footnotes in the text, were inspired by my intellectual mentor Herbert Blau, who simply asserted–and I risk a triteness by encapsulating–the notion of thought and performance being the same thing.
So at GHP we rehearse by both performing what we are thinking and thinking about what we are performing (by then performing it as we are continuing to think it). And those of you familiar with Gödel, Escher, and Bach will detect a use of recursive and imbedded loops leading, we can only hope, to the possibility of beauty and something which smacks of mind and art. And so the thought continues to perform in the turning over and over (and the lacuna is the widening gyre?–sure, why not).
At GHP we meet and we show one another what we want to
- show (as I hope we will do at our meetings and on this blog),–and showing may just mean telling in many cases–then we take some time to
- recollect what happened during that span of time while we were showing (after a meeting, in our case, or after reading something in a blog), and then we
- recapitulate what we remember, to share it and offer it as possible material for future work (rather than one person taking “minutes” or documenting what happens at a meeting, everyone could create accounts of what happened, emphasing what struck them as interesting or important and post those accounts on the blog). This may be a way for the “cross pollinating” to occur without us risking the spread of anything which could compromise our health.
May I refer everyone to my previous post, “On the seeming looseness of it all”?
I will witness to those who are confused or put off by what Marc has just written: what they do at GHP is fascinating and incredible. It does take time. The first four weeks, the kids are just as confused as you might be right now. Then suddenly, they start seeing things happen, and they begin to trust the process.
The same thing will happen to us, once we start playing with this process. Of course, we may choose to work up to it rather than diving right in.
No need to be put off or intimidated. All I’m talking about at this point is a way to think about how we approach sharing ideas and inspiring one another as we work on our various interests. I’m not suggesting we start right in with a project developed from scratch. Basically I’m trying to think of creative alternatives to taking minutes or writing reports, etc. You never know where the next interesting idea will come from. I’m just trying to make everyone’s every word a possible jumping off point.
“Stop wanking and pick a play…”
Yes, dear.
Kinda like the way I learned to type. For the longest, I watched my hands. One day, I decided to try doing it without watching. It worked. More or less.
I rather assumed we’d all have our little journals out at each session. I know I will. I’ll finally find a use for one of the many blank ones I own.
The most important part of the process is being truthful. Say everything that you see… even the slightest contribution can lead to greatness. Do not inhibit yourself.