Razor's Edge: 2/19/10

Earlier this week I went to the staff copy machine at the community college where I'm adjunct faculty. It's mid-term time and I needed to run off the scripts of the source texts for the students' mid-term interpretations for feedback and congruency.

In the efforts to go green and decrease the amount of trees we kill every term, the college staff and faculty all do our best to reduce our paper usage and to recycle the extra pages and ink-smeared errors. There is an ever growing stack of these unwanted or unneeded pages - handy for notetaking or test scratch paper or whatever other use a one-sided piece of paper can be put to.

As the machine did its magic and pushed out the two-sided scripts, I leaned against the cupboard on which the stack sat. Right there on top was a Lynda Barry cartoon on the left half of the paper and some questions for an in-class assignment on the right half. I have no idea what class this was for and it doesn't really matter.

I am a Lynda Barry fan - so it would have probably caught my eye, anyway. But the picture of the giant 'don't know' octopus enveloping the writer, and her beginning of "that strange floating feeling" and I knew I had to find a use for that scrapped piece of insight.

And so, here, below, is a copy of Lynda Barry's drawing. And, below that, is this week's Razor's Edge. Yes, they are related.

cartoon by the incomparable Lynda Barry
awesome writer and artist (and instructor, though I've never directly taken a class from her)

PROMPTS

First: take three minutes and will yourself to forget what you know. Forget it. Find that quiet place where you don't know and it's okay that you don't know. Let it go.

Second: what are your two questions? The two things that, when asked, will hook you in and wrap you up in knots as you search for the answer, or as Lynda Barry put it: "hold you hostage." Write them on a piece of paper and then (a) flush it down the toilet, or (b) thrown it the garbage can, or (c) burn it with a piece of your favorite incense, or (d) even better: tear it into strips and toss it into your recycling - the place from where this prompt was born!

Third: listen to this song, Time Flies, written by Julianna Waters, of Heart and HAMMER.

Fourth: imagine your own version of the "don't know" octopus. Let its arms envelope you and hold you safe in the space of not knowing. Pick up the pen or crayon or ball of clay or move and ... create ... Follow your body and put thoughts down on paper, or put up marks on the canvas on the wall, or walk tall on your toes, or crawl on the floor like the fuzzy caterpillar you saw last spring on the budding tree - create in whatever way feels right in that moment.
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Razor's Edge response for 2/12/10

Razor's Edge response from 2/12/10

The spoken word artist talks about what women deserve. I am a woman. What do I deserve?

If I woke up in the morning and I said to anyone who would listen that, today, I am going to play hookie. What would happen? Do I deserve a day of, as Emi Ha said, loafing?

What would happen if - for just one day - I was not responsible? If I said: this is My Day and I claim it as my own and I will be there for me, first. What would happen?

Sometimes I know I act as if I can hold up the world all by myself. Or at least this corner of the world where I dwell and work and love and don't sleep enough. I think that I can keep going and maybe I should just paint myself pink and attach a puffy bunny tail and carry around a big majorette's drum - just like the energizer bunny.

Only the bunny does run out. Sometime, s/he will. I know it. I know it keeps going and going and going. But one day. It will. Stop.

I don't want to stop.

But maybe I need to rest.

My body is telling me now that I need. To. Rest.

I have a little irritating rash that my body. Can't handle. It's stress induced. I've been told. And my adrenals are running on high although they are still following a circadian rhythm, which is good. I've been told. Or they're kind of stuck or vacuum locked - like my car the one day we had a few hours of snow and ice and I was stuck in traffic for 5 hours going about 5 to 10 MPH and then my car wouldn't get out of low gear. Except my adrenals are in the fight or flight mode. Still. Too much cortisol.

I don't want to get stuck in low gear.

So what do I deserve? What is it I need?

Sleep. Down time. Rest.

The supplements to help my body heal the rash make me tired. I was warned. Tired and a little cold- or flu-like. But not sick. Though the feelings are very similar.

Rest. "You may have to slow down to get over this," my Naturopath warned. And she may be right.

Rest.

What a beautiful four letter word.

Razor's Edge #4

For this week's prompts, something just a little different.

Below are two videos. Start the blue (music) video first: Hip Hop Violin. When the music begins, press play on the pink (spoken word) video: What Women Deserve.

Turn up the volume on the pink video a little higher than the blue video, so that you can hear her over the music.

When the poet is done, you can choose to stop the music or let it play out the additional 3 or so minutes. Read the prompt underneath the videos - and write... or draw / paint/ dance / sculpt...





prompt:

The one thing I must tell you, is ...
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Razor's Edge #3

Today's inspiration is from the Twyla Tharp book, The Creative Habit, which I've was able to read a little bit more of on the plane to Dallas today. I'm reading the section on preparation for creativity and establishing a creative habit. There are so many good nuggets in this book, I feel content to read a little bit, grab a bite of inspiration and go explore. Then return later when I can.

I posted the specific content yesterday, which led to today's topic. There is much more about it in the book, but that sentence is the one which really sticks with me.

Today's topic is

solitude

Take a couple minutes to center yourself, breathe, relax. Closing your eyes is optional - only do it if it helps you enter the place where you are and be present with what you are about to create.

When you're ready, look at the set of prompts - or just pick one - and let them guide you to your creation. As a suggestion, read the character sketch, start the music video (it is really lovely; I'm going to see if Music Millenium has the cd in stock when I get home), and look at the picture.

Listen to what bubbles up to the surface for you.

Create: write, draw, dance, cook, plant a garden. Follow where your heart takes you.


character sketch:
He walks tall in his Levi's 501 jeans, the straight-legged pants loose around his calves. The brick red t-shirt is loosely tucked in , except for just above his left back pocket, where the end hangs out and I can see a piece of his white undershirt. One leg seems to lag half a second behind the other, but the little hiccup in his step. The ends of his blond hair peaks out from underneath the straw hat that is held on by a strap running underneath his chin. He hooks his thumb in his right rear pocket, staring at the road ahead.


music: (Antoine Dufour & Tommy Gauthier - "Solitude" from Still Strings)




picture:

photo of Rezidence Lundborg, Prague