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As there seems to be baby-boom-time in my circle of friends, I often find myself in lack of a gift to bring to the first visit to meet the newborn. I decided to make some stuffed animals of my stash of left over fabrics. It turned into a family of bunnies steadily increasing in numbers. I have been experimenting with the different faces trying to bring them some personality. The ones in front of the picture are my first experiments where I chose the shape that multiplied through the back row of bunnies. A friend pointed out to me that the first row looks like they just died, which made another friend think of “The Book of Bunny Suicides”, a comic strip by Andy Riley. It is hilarious:
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“Wenn ich eine Weile ohne Lust und ohne Schmerz war und die laue fade Erträglichkeit sogenannter guter Tage geatmet habe, dann wird mir in meiner kindischen Seele so windig weh und elend, dass ich die verrostete Dankbarkeitsleier dem schläfrigen Zufriedenheitsgott ins zufriedene Gesicht schmeisse und lieber einen rect teuflischen Schmerz in mir brennen fühle als diese bekömmliche Zimmertemperatur.”
“Denn dies hasste, verabscheute und verfluchte ich von allem doch am innigsten: diese Zufriedenheit, diese Gesundheit, Behaglichkeit, diesen gepflegten Optimismus des Bürgers, diese fette gedeiliche Zucht des Mittelmässigen, Normalen, Durchschnittlichen.”
(Mozart) “Das ist ja zum Lachen, du Drachen, zum lauten Lachen, zum Verkrachen, zum In-die-Hosen-Machen! O du gläubiges Herze, mit deiner Druckerschwärtze, mit deinem Seelenschmerze, ich stifte dir eine Kerze, nur so zum Scherze. Geschnickelt, geschnackelt, spetakelt, schabernackelt, mit dem Schwanz gewackelt, nicht lang gefackelt. Gott befohlen, der Teufel wird dich holen, verhauen und versolen für dein schreiben und Kohlen, hast ja alles zusammengestohlen.”
(Hermine) “Begreifst du das nicht, du gelehrter Herr: dass ich dir darum gefalle und für dich wichtig bin, weil ich wie eine art Spiegel für dich bin, weil in mir innen etwas ist, was dir Antwort gibt und dich versteht? Eigentlich sollten alle Menschen füreinander solche Spiegel sein und einander so antworten und entsprechen, aber solche Käuze wie du sind eben wunderlich und verlaufen sich leicht in eine Verzauberung, dass sie in den Augen andrer Menschen nichts mehr sehen und lesen können, dass es sie nichts mehr angeht. Und wenn dann so ein Kauz plötzlich doch wieder ein Gesicht findet, das ihn wirklich anschaut, in dem er etwas wie Antwort und Verwandtschaft spürt, ja, dann hat er natürlich eine Freude.”
There was a course in academic writing today at uni, by the American Lynn P. Nygaard. She told us what to think about to write a good academic text in a very clear and inspiring way, and the humor kept us awake. Later I was so inspired that I bought her book “Writing for Scholars – A practical guide to Making sense and Being Heard”.
Towards the end of the day she gave us some tips on how to make the most out of the writing process that I want to remember:
>Writing reveals holes in your thinking. In your head you can have vague ideas which coexist. It becomes more clear when you have to make decisions on how to write it.
> Many good ideas appear while you are writing. It is a process. Writing pushes you and forces you to think.
> Don´t wait to long to start writing! It is part of the research, not something you do after reading, sampling etc
> It is difficult because it is part of the thinking process. Don´t do too much at the same time.
> The creative part: Making sence of all the ideas, the caos. Let ideas flow, don´t think of language etc.
> The critical part: Making sence of it to others.
> Don´t do creative and critical at the same time! Writers block ist mostly too much in the brain not too little.
> You have to learn to write even if you´re not inspired!
>Be ready when ideas come! Notice when you tend to get your ideas! Exercising, driving, listening to music+++ Recreate these situations! Write them down.
Freewriting is when you sit down and just write without thinking or planning on what to write. You just write what falls into your head without stopping. This can warm you up tp the real writing task and make unexpected ideas surface.
Here is what I wrote during 5 minutes:
Not to write anything. No… Environmental subjects how to find the right angle, am I going to? What will it take, is it in my interest, literary review will decide on what, get inspired by the literary review? Maybe something will get clearer, now I don´t know what to do, there is very little time. This course helped, I am inspired to write, I hope I will be when I get home, maybe I should buy the book, but I probably will do something else, I hope not, but playing the guitar and painting is always more tempting, as is the internet, my blog and my photography. How to find the best case for my masters? Where to look, there are to many interesting subjects, why can´t I name just one which is perfect? How do I connect to my past bachelor in product design, do I really want to move that far away from my creative side, how do i combine the creativeness with something meaningful? Does it have to be energy?
The Summer Before the Dark was published in 1973. This is my experience of it reading it in 2009.
Doris Lessing has an amazing gift to describe feelings and thoughts in a way where I was absolutely sucked in to the main character´s mind. I could feel the awakening of a 40 year old woman who suddenly views her life, passed and the person she has created as herself, from the outside. The first pages of the book had me already, when I entered her thoughts. I love this line: “She is trying on thoughts like dresses form the hangers”. Phrases are passing through her mind. Phrases that people use constantly that have no meaning. People just say a lot of things on auto pilot. There are so many “truths”, excuses and answers out there that are never questioned because they have been made everlasting as phrases in people minds. Like “life is best in your youth” or “marriage is full of compromizes” for instance. She realizes that her life consists these phrases and of a permanent controlling of details. The sum of details is the backdrop one the stage of her family life.
One summer she is through a series of coincidences freed from her life on that stage, and given time and opportunity to be another version of herself, to express her own identity. Or so she thinks, only to realize that she had not escaped after all. She is doing the same play, just on a different stage. She makes an irrational decision and goes on a journey both physically and mentally away, far away. The journey wears her down and strips her to the bone, it is almost as if she has to disappear to reemerge again. Not as a different person, not as a new “true” self, but as someone who makes a choice. She has had the courage to meet herself eye to eye.
This book was obviously a strong contribution to the feminist wave of the seventies, and still is to the feminism of today. It also gave me some reflections on the general numbness I see that many people find themselves in. The feeling of living a life not chosen by them, but which has happened to them. It makes me feel deeply grateful for being blessed with the opportunity, the will and the ability to choose and to create the stages I want to perform on.
From the online biography at http://www.dorislessing.org/biography.html:
“Attacked for being “unfeminine” in her depiction of female anger and aggression, Lessing responded, “Apparently what many women were thinking, feeling, experiencing came as a great surprise.” As at least one early critic noticed, Anna Wulf “tries to live with the freedom of a man” – a point Lessing seems to confirm: “These attitudes in male writers were taken for granted, accepted as sound philosophical bases, as quite normal, certainly not as woman-hating, aggressive, or neurotic.”
