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Time Containers

Name the projects you are going to do today (“replace the Bundt-cake monologue,” “Outline the battle scene, “ “Build and test the airplane puppet” ... etc.) Each project wants to be achievable and specific and make a real contribution to your project. So “have ideas” is a bad project assignment. As is “fix second act.” Assign yourself an amount of time to contain your work on each of these projects: — build and test airplane puppet. 45 minutes. — replace the Bundt-cake monologue. 90 minutes. — outline for battle scene. 30 minutes. Allow yourself 5 minutes at the beginning of each task to size up the problem. If there are multiple ways of attacking it, take a few minutes to identify these (or some of them). BUT THEN PICK ONE method and use THAT. Save a few minutes at the end of the time period to “show” or “document” or “observe” what you have achieved. At the end of each period, just sit with what you did for a few minutes, before you move on. In this moment of reflecti...
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Keep Singing

Keep singing. Jonas Mekas, who died last year, is a crucial figure in the American avant-garde and the world of downtown New York. You should read about him here and  here . You could look at his films, too, but even if you don't like them (you might not), you should read on. At the end of his life, he would tell people "Keep Singing!" And when he died, some of his friends made this tribute to him. It's a five minute film , but it gives you a little sense of the perspective that age brings (he was over 95 when he died) and what it feels like for a young artist to have lived through hard times. In particular, I'm struck by his hunger  for culture and by his willingness to look at how work was being made in his field, film, and issue a call to  blow it all up, because he and his friends felt as if they could make film that was more lively, more vital. So, today the assignment is: Keep singing. What does that mean to you? (It might mean actually singing. I...
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Struggling and conceptualizing Struggling

There’s an interesting article in Today’s New York Times about artists working in These Times. You might read it if it isn’t going to get in the way of your working. I’m interested in it because it acknowledges what we all know: that there is something that many of us experience as debilitating  in this moment. Living in a time when so many people are getting sick and our leaders are so totally lost and our futures all seem uncertain and the hideous inequalities of our cultures are all hanging out there...it’s easy for us to want to crawl up in a ball. Or go volunteer to do something that could actually help . I’m thinking about this on three ways—but there are (I’m sure) more than three ways to think about this. First, it was largely the failures of our culture to imagine, to listen well, and to respond creatively that got us into this. Those of us who have more finely honed skills in imagining, listening, responding, and making are really needed now. We may not be making ...
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