I am going to start this again…tried it once, now more time. I have Nicholas to thank for introducing me to these cards. Maybe one day we can write something together. I have 127 Oblique strategies written on cards. Thank you Brian Eno. Over the next 127 days I am going to write 127 essays. Some may be longer than others and some may include YOUR name. If you strongly believe I should not use your name in any of these please let me know. I may change your names but one way or another I will try to incorporate all of you into these passages.
I am doing this to refresh my writing and vocabulary for the coming school year, along with a way to pass time during the summer while having fun and learning more about life. Here are the list of categories given. I may choose at random or simply go in order of 1-127.
01) Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities
02) Don’t be frightened of clichés
03) What is the reality of the situation?
04) Are there sections? Consider transitions
05) Turn it upside down
06) Think of the radio
07) Allow an easement (an easement is the abandonment of a stricture)
08) Simple subtraction
09) Be dirty
10) Go slowly all the way round the outside
11) A line has two sides
12) Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do & do the last thing on the list
13) Into the impossible
14) Towards the insignificant
15) Ask people to work against their better judgement
16) Take away the elements in order of apparent non-importance
17) Infinitesimal gradations
18) Change instrument roles
19) Accretion
20) Disconnect from desire
21) Emphasize repetitions
22) Faced with a choice, do both (given by Dieter Rot)
23) Children -speaking -singing
24) Lost in useless territory
25) A very small object Its center
26) Dont be afraid of things because they’re easy to do
27) Dont be frightened to display your talents
28) Breathe more deeply
29) Honor thy error as a hidden intention
30) What are the sections sections of? Imagine a caterpillar moving
31) Only one element of each kind
32) Is there something missing
33) Use ‘unqualified’ people
34) How would you have done it?
35) Emphasize differences
36) Do nothing for as long as possible
37) Bridges -build -burn
38) Always give yourself credit for having more than personality
39) You don’t have to be ashamed of using your own ideas
40) Tidy up
41) Do the words need changing?
42) Ask your body
43) Tape your mouth
44) Water
45) Simply a matter of work
46) Make a sudden, destructive unpredictable action; incorporate
47) Consult other sources -promising -unpromising
48) Use an unacceptable color
49) Humanize something free of error
50) Use filters
51) Fill every beat with something
52) Discard an axiom
53) Not building a wall but making a brick
54) What wouldn’t you do?
55) Lowest common denominator
56) Decorate, decorate
57) Balance the consistency principle with the inconsistency principle
58) Get your neck massaged
59) Listen to the quiet voice
60) Do the washing up
61) Is it finished?
62) Put in earplugs
63) Reevaluation (a warm feeling)
64) Give the name away
65) Intentions -nobility of -humility of -credibility of
66) Abandon normal instruments
67) Use fewer notes
68) Repetition is a form of change
69) Give way to your worst impulse
70) Reverse
71) Trust in the you of now
72) Imagine the piece as a set of disconnected events
73) What would your closest friend do?
74) Distorting time
75) Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame
76) Feed the recording back out of the medium
77) Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element
78) The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten
79) Ghost echoes
80) You can only make one dot at a time
81) Just carry on
82) (Organic) machinery
83) The inconsistency principle
84) Don’t break the silence
85) Idiot glee (?)
86) Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them
87) Cascades
88) Courage!
89) Spectrum analysis
90) What mistakes did you make last time?
91) Consider different fading systems
92) Mute and continue
93) Be extravagant
94) It is quite possible (after all)
95) What are you really thinking about just now?
96) Don’t stress on thing more than another [sic]
97)
98) State the problem in words as clearly as possible
99) Assemble some of the elements in a group and treat the group
100) You are an engineer
101) Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics
102) Look at the order in which you do things
103) Go outside. Shut the door.
104) Disciplined self-indulgence
105) Do we need holes?
106) Cluster analysis
107) Always first steps
108) Cut a vital connection
109) Do something boring
110) Define an area as ’safe’ and use it as an anchor
111) Is the information correct?
112) Overtly resist change
113) Question the heroic approach
114) Accept advice
115) Twist the spine
116) Work at a different speed
117) Look closely at the most embarrassing details & amplify them
118) Mechanicalize something idiosyncratic
119) Emphasize the flaws
120) Remember those quiet evenings
121) Take a break
122) Short circuit (example: a man eating peas with the idea that they will improve his virility shovels them straight into his lap)
123) Left channel, right channel, center channel
124) Use an old idea
125) Destroy -nothing -the most important thing
126) Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency
127) The tape is now the music
