Monday 31 May 2010

Tomorrow, then. Straight to Jubilee.

I've been wondering for several minutes how to get back to work.  Deleting now about from between minutes and how is as far as I've gone.  And turning up the volume on my random five cds.

Last week I attended my son's convocation in Vancouver.  In breaking our joint two-week abstention from liquor of any kind--this was the night before--we wondered if arbitrary goals meant anything.  Depends on the context in which the goals were set, is the sensible answer, isn't it?  (The process of composing pieces of poetry might be one context for usefully arbitrary goals.  If not, I'm screwed.)

On the way out to Vancouver on the plane, anticipating that conversation (which we'd begun on the phone), I read the June The Walrus cover to cover.  About three quarters of the way through I came across commentary about Micah Lexier that began by quoting Igor Stravinsky.  I didn't write it down--something about the generative and liberating powers of arbitrary goals--but I did clip it and pin it to his bulletin board when he wasn't looking.  (Poor guy--he gave up his bedroom for me and slept on the couch.  Then after work he was heading across the line to the Sasquatch music festival until today.  He won't spot the clipping until tomorrow, I'm guessing.)

So, I know my Hillsdale work is not done until, among other things, I've written on location on every one of its streets.  I'm working backwards alphabetically; a version of K, for Knowles, is my May 20 blog entry.  What I particularly like about that idea is that it ends with Anderson, my boyhood home, where we moved in '61.

3 comments:

Brenda Schmidt said...

I like that quote. It's going up on my bulletin board. Timely or what.

Gerald Hill said...

Want to elaborate on its timeliness?

Brenda Schmidt said...

Well, I've embarked on a new project it seems with arbitrary goals (I typed "goats" by accident...) and a timeline. Now to be open to those generative and liberating powers and just let go.