Lichtenbergian Proposed Efforts 2023

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We had the Lichtenbergian Society Annual Meeting last night, and as longtime readers know, the central RITUAL in the evening’s agenda is 1) having our Proposed Efforts for the past year read out to us from the record book and accounting for what we did or did not accomplish; and 2) recording our P.E. for the coming year.

Here’s my report on mine.

Proposed Efforts for 2022

The Young Person’s Guide to Lichtenbergianism

I finished revising YPGtL and set it aside. I put it out there for people to download and review if they liked... and no one took me up on it (that I’m aware of). I might just go ahead and pull the trigger and publish it.

GALAXY/Alchemy

We installed GALAXY at Alchemy 2022 in October, and it was fabulous. It was also fragile, with disoriented hippies tripping and breaking it within hours of installation. More work is required with Chief Engineer Turff.

As for my stint at Benevolent Placement Overlord™, the actual laying out of the burn was hellatious since we were back at Cherokee Farms in LaFayette, GA, and I wasn’t familiar enough with the land to make decisions I was 100% sure about. However, once the camps started rolling in, the hippies were overjoyed with their placement. It was, in everyone’s estimation, a phenomenal burn. I can pass the torch.

Midsummer Night’s Dream hybrid production

Paulo Manso de Sousa, of Southern Arc Dance, has invited me to work with him on a ballet of Midsummer Night’s Dream, a hybrid of dance and theatre. We met several times to discuss ideas, potential venues, etc.

Waste art supplies

I was supposed to explore with abandon some art stuff/things that involve recyclable/inexpensive materials. I didn’t really do it.

Compose…?

I composed nothing

Backstreet checkout system

Down at Backstreet Arts, I have designed the checkout system, with barcodes and everything. Now all I have to do is catalog and input a huge stack of donated books.

Reconfigure the study

My study is a huge room, occupying most of the attic over the older part of our house, and it’s nearly full of stuff.

It’s still full of stuff. Maybe 2023…

Project 20-2-2

This was supposed to be my next big art project for the burn. Instead, my brain decided that the March from the Dark Side would be better. And it was. Aided and abetted by Shane Garner in the design/construction/promotion phase, and then led by Duff Stoneson at the burn, the March generated a small but enthusiastic crowd — and even more enthusiasm in the audience to participate themselves next year.

Proposed Efforts for 2023

MND

We started this past Saturday with a Shakespeare workshop for some of the young dancers from Southern Arc. Performances will begin Sat, Apr 15.

Writer’s Group

The Backstreet Arts Writer’s Group actually will start back up tomorrow morning — not that I had anything to do with that. Former members have decided to embarrass me into starting back by announcing they’re doing it themselves.

March from the Dark Side

The excitement engendered by the March at Alchemy 2022 encourages me to work with my co-leads Duff and Shane to promote it earlier and more heavily. I’d love for it to become as much a part of Alchemy as Burn Night itself.

Unsilent Night Newnan

I dropped the ball on publicity/recruitment this year. (Things got hectic starting in August; I was busy.) Next year I want to try to recruit “squad leaders” who will in turn recruit groups of people to attend the event with them. I want us to have 100 people (or more) with lanterns and boomboxes.

Revisit old compositions

I’ve already updated all the Finale files so that I don’t lose those to upgrades. (I should also print them out to be on the safe side.)

Compose

Just last week I made myself crack open the #AbortiveAttempts for Ten Little Waltzes, and I finished “Little Waltz G.” I will work on that suite, plus maybe a piece for violin and cello at the behest of my cello teacher, plus (maybe) Seven Dreams of Falling if I can track down Scott Wilkerson and see if he’s willing to finish the libretto.

Blogging

I need to get off my lazy ass and get back to blogging, both here and over at dalelyles.com. (So far, so good…)

Abeyance, or the turning of the tide

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Back in the Before Times, when I was occasionally productive, there would be spells of inertia between projects that I called the turning of the tide, during which my creative energy/attention ebbed and regrouped before coming back up the shore.

This is normal. Most of us are not Anthony Trollope or Pablo Picasso, churning out work after work nonstop our entire lives.* (Of course, they were actually responding to the market for their work; someone was waiting to pay for that next installment of The Last Chronicle of Barset or the latest set of Minotaur lithographs. Hold that thought.)

We joke about TASK AVOIDANCE being the key Precept of Lichtenbergianism, but we all know that to move forward we have to work on something, and that’s where I’m stuck. My mental image for TASK AVOIDANCE is like the Taoist metaphor of water: shapeless, yet all shapes; flowing, seeking exit when blocked; soft and yielding, yet inexorable in its ability reshape its surroundings. When one project is too much to face, or at a point where GESTALT is called for, or for some other reason, my attention simply seeks the next easiest thing like water seeks the lowest point.

Now, however, not one of my rotating list of avoidable projects provides an easy entry. The GALAXY project for the burn? I’m waiting for the engineering team to report back on how we’re going to power 200 rings of EL wire. (Not to mention, the burn itself is not a sure thing.)

The labyrinth refurbishment literally has to wait for warmer weather. The fence art project needs more room for me to measure and cut the fabric panels, and that too requires warmer weather to set up tables outside.

As for Lichtenbergianism for Kids, I grind away getting illustrations finished, but now I’m having thoughts about rewriting it from start to finish because I’m not sure I have hooked the young reader with my scintillating style.

Ugh.

Then I keep coming back to the hard, bare fact that no one is begging me to finish L’ism for Kids. This is not self-pity, just a recognition that I’m lazy in the extreme — if I wanted to finish it badly enough, I would, without an editor/agent/publisher haranguing me.**

Okay, back to work. And I promise not to write another post about not getting the work done, at least for a while.

Return is the movement of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.

All things are born of being.
Being is born of non-being.

— Tao te ching, new English version by Stephen Mitchell

MAKE THE THING THAT IS NOT.

* see footnote 18, p. 7

** If any agents/editors/publishers would like to harangue me, I am open to suasion.