โI want you to do this with me for one month. One month. Write 10 observations a week and by the end of four weeks, you will have an answer. Because when someone writes about the rustic gutter and the water pouring through it onto the muddy grass, the real pours into the room. And itโs thrilling. Weโre all enlivened by it. We donโt have to find more than the rustic gutter and the muddy grass and the pouring cold water.โ
โ Marie Howe, Boston Universityโs 2016 Theopoetics Conferenceย (via mothersofmyheart)
I ask my students every week to write 10 observations of the actual world. Itโs very hard for them.
Ms. Tippett:
Really?
Ms. Howe:
They really find it hard.
Ms. Tippett:
What do you mean? What is the assignment? 10 observations of their actual world?
Ms. Howe:
Just tell me what you saw this morning like in two lines. I saw a water glass on a brown tablecloth, and the light came through it in three places. No metaphor. And to resist metaphor is very difficult because you have to actually endure the thing itself, which hurts us for some reason.
Ms. Tippett:
It does.
Ms. Howe:
It hurts us.
Ms. Tippett:
You naming something.
Ms. Howe:
We want to say, โIt was like this; it was like that.โ We want to look away. And to be with a glass of water or to be with anything โ and then they say, โWell, thereโs nothing important enough.โ And thatโs whole thing. Itโs the point.
Ms. Howe:
Itโs the this, right?
Ms. Howe:
Right, the this, whatever. And then they say, โOh, I saw a lot of people who really wantโ โ and, โNo, no, no. No abstractions, no interpretations.โ But then this amazing thing happens, Krista. The fourth week or so, they come in and clinkety, clank, clank, clank, onto the table pours all this stuff. And it so thrilling. I mean, it is thrilling. Everybody can feel it. Everyone is just like, โWow.โ The slice of apple, and then that gleam of the knife, and the sound of the trashcan closing, and the maple tree outside, and the blue jay. I mean, it almost comes clanking into the room. And itโs just amazing.
Ms. Tippett:
In some basic level, what theyโve done is just engage with their senses.
Ms. Howe:
Yeah, and have been present out of their minds and just noticing whatโs around them, which is โ we donโt do. And again, not to compare it to anything. Theyโre not allowed. And thatโs very hard for them. And then on the fifth or sixth week, I say, โOK, use metaphors.โ And they donโt want to. They donโt know how. Theyโre like, โWhy would I? Why would I compare that to anything when itโs itself?โ Exactly. Good question.
So then you think, why the necessity of a metaphor? Why do you have to use a metaphor now? Not just to do it to avoid it, but to do it to make it more there. And itโs very interesting.
The words and silences we live by. The rituals that sustain us. The poetry of ordinary time.
Writing taught me that the most interesting thing about a person is never what happened to them. it's what they decided it meant. two people can go through the exact same thing and build completely different selves out of it. the event is just the event. the story they tell about it is who they become. I think about this every time i catch myself retelling something from my own life and notice i've quietly changed what it meant. we are all editing ourselves constantly.
I recently got an ask [x] on colouring for this set I did for solo levelling [x] and it got so long because I wanted to say so many things and I ended up going into colour theory so I gave up fighting with photoshop and did it on keynote instead ๐
rated E, 37.2k, macklin celebrini/will smith hockey
What if he asks if Will can come to Halifax, and Dada can see everything, the entire fucking evening, broadcast on his face?
The walk back from the coffee shop, the dart of Willโs tongue over his teeth before he leaned in and kissed Mack, backing him, gentle, up against the door of his hotel room. Afterwards, in the Uber back to his hotel, Mack had googled at least three variations of โOura ring sex heart rate data delete,โ afraid that his dad would start asking questions about the fifteen-minute โbrisk walkโ heโd taken at one in the morning in Stockholm.
Featuring slavic immigrant daddy issues, painting lessons, "generational friendlessness" (to quote user @allthespoons), growing increasingly resentful of your lonely nomadic childhood, and PININGGG.
And, because I so badly want us all to start talking about our influences and references and subtext, I am leading by example and sharing my moodboard slash project web!! I had truly the most fun EVER putting this together and I am allowing myself to be pretentious in MY house.
Peteโs still quite young in the first episode, right? Youngโฆ You mean his face? No, I mean, heโs still all confused about this. He hasnโt caught up.
titsay
stormborns
kaledo-art
gummygunk
blakekathryn
jacobvanloon
snowghoul
janainaart
origamiaround
baratheonpilled
