Day 5: Process notes, love and lightness
30 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment
in Process
I’ve been brainstorming like a maniac and over the past few days have written a few thousand words about different objects of love. I’m very close to finishing a few of them, but they’re not quite there yet. I promise you, you’ll have many things that are not cutlery.
I didn’t make as much progress as I wanted to today, in part because I was part of the Benefictions reading. And it rocked! Thanks so much to everyone who came out to see us. We packed the place out and raised money for disaster relief. Hooray! I just got home and am desperately typing something – look ma! I did stuff, I wrote words today, I thought about things, I read stories, I made good progress on stuffs and helped raise money for charity.
Discoveries 2 – love and lightness
Love really is contagious. Working on this project infuses me with so much love. It has been excellent on many levels. An unexpected thing of awesomeness is that I feel more connected to folks back in Australia than I have in a while.
Love is a giddy thing. It is so energizing and I think an under explored way of beating writers block. When approaching a lump of stuff and feeling uninspired it is liberating to think “How can I make this a celebration of this? How can I make something dynamically an expression of love? What makes this thing strange so that I can find a love that is unique and specific.” This does not mean some artificial kitchery, if anything (for me, in this moment) it means a more openness to the complexity of things. Some of the stuff (and who knows how much will survive my editing knife) is so much more assertive and opinionated because I’m feeling fueled by this love
Italo Calvino writes about delight and lightness in his Six Memos for the Millenium and I think, through this write-a-thon. It’s something I think of often. I have felt heavy of late and it is good to have voice and feel lightness in my bones again.
Italo Calvino’s Memo 1 – Lightness (And you know, I’ve been thinking of Calvino and only just realized that I’m reading another mediation on the weight of things in Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being)
But most of all I wanted to write and say, people are seriously awesome. Seriously seriously amazing. I may have to write love letters to people next year!
Day 4b: Lyrics to Fork 1004 AD
29 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment
in Letters
I wrote so much about process I neglected to post up the lyrics to Fork 1004 AD.
Here they are:
Fork 1004 AD
She died from love of you
She died from love of you
Though your tines are fine in Byzantine
The world is not ready for you
She came across the waves
She came across the waves
To fulfill her spot, in some Venetian plot
Oh she’ll carry you to her grave
On her wedding night she used
On her wedding night she used
You her golden fork, to eat her pork
And then she was much abused
These fingers are all we need
These fingers are all we need
Now don’t you mock, God’s natural forks
Or there will be hell for you
Vain lady, vain cur, vain bitch
Vain lady, vain cur, vain bitch
They were not surprised, as two years went by
Her breast boiled with a fearsome itch
And so she up and died
And so she up and died
Her mother cried, cross the ocean wide
And her husband was mortified
A saint came and spoke at her grave
A saint came and spoke at her grave
You can be sure, it’s God keeping score
For the sin of her fork using ways.
She died from love of you
She died from love of you
Though your tines are fin, in Byzantine
The world is not ready for you
Day 4: Love Song to a Fork
29 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment
in Process
The second fork in the road.
Epilogue
This song was inspired by an article on the Smithsonian website. Right now, June 24 2011, wikipedia indicates that there may be significant inaccuracies in this article. I have not done further research.
Process Afterword
I am not a skilled music editing-type person. This is clear to me and possibly clear to you if you’ve listened to the recording above. I’m starting to understand how different bits of recording music work, although much of it is still completely baffling. There do seem to be a lot of mechanisms to encourage you to spend money very swiftly, but I am resisting them all.
Fork 1004 AD is the second song I recorded on my phone, but without guitar there were fewer things to fiddle with and worry about. The strangeness in the outro is because I needed to turn up the volume a lot to hear my words, and then had to knock the top and the bottom of the sound out to get rid of the horrible static. Goes to show a good original recording is the most important thing and fixing it in edits is not so much fun.
Process:
- e-mailed iRig recording on phone to self (next time I record I might try the vocalive app instead. Vocalive had too many knobs and scared me, so I figured for the first time record straight forward and play with levels later. I don’t know if this was foolish)
- downloaded and installed Reaper (for the Phone Song I think I’ll try Audacity now that I know what I like and don’t like about Reaper)
- tried to open file in Reaper, but Reaper cannot read .m4a files
- tried various strange conversion methods, all of which were time consuming, frustrating or just didn’t work
- briefly considered using mynah (part of aviary). I also explored uploading files to stormcloud
- got frustrated by limited options and returned to original Reaver plan if only I could translate these .m4a files
- asked the internet
- internet to the rescue with a very easy, if somewhat obscure, option
- fiddled around with Reaper trying to get it to do stuff. Succeeded in cutting flabby silences and did my best to remove static cack
- tried to export as mp3
- downloaded LAME project library file so that I could actually export as mp3
- failed to install downloaded library file… possibly because I do not have permissions
- saved song as .wav file
- file is huge and too big to upload
- opened .wav in itunes, saved as mp3
- uploaded to my other website that I can actually host mp3s on so that I can link to here
- wrote blog post
- promised myself I’d do better next time, but at least I’m learning.
The day flees before me and I want to finish off some of my other love letters. My sponsors get a copy of the love letter first, so I need to send stuff out so I can put stuff up!
Day 3: Love Letter to a Fork
28 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment
in Letters
James Patrick Kelly gave me two challenges. The first challenge was “fork.”
My fork love bifurcated and this is the first fork in the road. I haven’t shared a new poem with the world for a long long time. I love how this project is pushing me through roadblocks of fear (like yesterday) and back into old loves too much neglected.
*
Fork: felt in the hand
You are my mother’s fork
passed down in the hands of daughters
Cool brassy metal curved in the palm
The embossed lithe circus seal dances on your handle
Balancing blocks on a brassy nose.
Each block a letter, spelling a secret
The alphabet’s a texture
Felt in a child’s hand
Words known before knowing
Words imprinted in bone and blood.
Seal-balancing-alphabet-fork
Daughter after daughter weaving memory in your tines
Metal connecting one childhood to the next
Love like a lacquer, yours builds into ours.
Seal-balancing-alphabet-fork
Perfect for scooping frozen peas
Sweet green ice for the mouth
My sister and I feel your bubbling words
Day 2: Terror, Telephones and Forks
27 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment
in Process
I feel this happy - possibly this insane
I finally did it <- the last thing I recorded on this fateful day
Clearly the extra, previously unspoken, theme of this six week project is do creative things that terrify me. Today was busy with many things, exploding with busyness after a busy day yesterday (there’s a reason why my Day 1 post squeaked in at midnight).
Today’s the kind of day where I have eaten a little bit of meat and half a ginger cookie and coffee (twice), because it just hasn’t stopped. And so, in a day that couldn’t fit it all in I had a brief respite at 1pm and so I wrote on facebook:
“Am contemplating walking down to the local Guitar shop to find something to plug into my mac so I can record stuff without whirr of the hard drive’s fan. Part of me is thinking, but money! Part of me is thinking your pie hole has no right to complain if you’ve eaten at a restaurant this month.”
After some pleasant back and forth I suddenly and violently wrote on twitter and facebook:
“This afternoon I’m going to attempt to record a song at Inner Chapters Bookstore & Cafe and on Thursday I’ll be there doing a reading as part of BeneFictions for Earthquake Relief ”
There were some nice responses to that too.
Then I thought, I can’t do that. Recording terrifies me, I have no equipment, no leads, no microphones, nothing. What? What? What? And then I listened to some Molly Lewis when I was adding secret cookies to my sponsor list and I thought what? What? What the hell am I doing when there are so many sensational performers already on the tubies. What?
But Jen had paid $20 to hear my song sometime. And I had said over social media that I would record, not just any time, but today. I walked to the guitar store in a daze – feeling and looking brain damaged. I gazed hollowly at the guys and discussed options – my utter terror exuding from every pore. They told me some things. Not too many things, but enough things. I staggered out, shuffling my feet and scratching my head as I said, I don’t know, I have to think, I need coffee… I… yes… I have… the things… maybe?
I wandered out of the store and perused the internet while e-mailing writers to tell them awesome people had sent them money. Then I researched some more, felt terror ebb and flow through my body. “But I’m crap” “But people I love back in Australia want my songs.” “But…” “But…” And slowly I built my resolve through the combined weight of awesome people I had made a promise to, internet research into the tec and my own internal “Seriously Liz, build a bridge, get over it. Feel the fear, move through it. You just have to do this. And if you are crap, well that’s crap you have to move through to get better, so better start now.”
I think the guys were quite surprised when I returned to the store. I purchased a shiny new iRig Mic and walked with a more confident stride (guitar in hand) to Inner Chapters to figure out how to record on this mysterious device.
I spent quite a while wrestling with the tech, getting software on my iPhone (step 1: being finally registering my phone with iTunes!).
And then… then I recorded stuff… and I don’t think it is the most awful crap you have ever heard. Big thank you to Kristina, owner of Inner Chapters (who also provided the mic stand) and Nicole Feldl who provided audience. Both were invaluable. It felt good, really good.
Then I staggered home, got very confused by editing things. Hastily edited a little bit of audio, got frustrated and confused by this website, editing software, threw myself onto Aviary in case it was a quick solution, mucked it up a few times, uploaded audio onto my own website while desperately writing this blog post and now… now… maybe I can eat… pant pant… and soon I hope to master some other tech, listen properly to what I recorded and will have more to share.
I haven’t made progress on my novel today, sorry about that, but I will endeavor to do better tomorrow. Pressing publish now, apologies for typos but I must put an end to this day!
Day 1: Love Letter to a Spork
26 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment
in Letters Tags: childhood, love letters to inanimate objects, memory, objects, splade, Spork
Contemporary splayd (they have changed shape a little)
I have been bubbling with excitement for this project for weeks. And of course now my knees feel quite terrified. Fortunately my fingers are saying frack you knees, you said you’d share your words so share them. My fingers are often braver than the rest of me. Sometimes they are stupider…. much… much stupider… but I think they are where my brave lives. My brave also lives in hugs.
Anyhow, this is the first love letter. When I first posted details about this project it was immediately suggested that I write a love letter to a spork. And I immediately did… I couldn’t wait, not for sponsorship, not for the write-a-thon to start. The love letter called to me and I followed it down into its sporklyness. For the first day of the write-a-thon I edited the first love letter I wrote. I have no idea how good it is! But that is the nature of the experimental dance.
I hope it brings you adequate satisfaction.
Best
Liz
PS: The splayd is an Australian spork-like invention, my mind has always mis-spelled it as splade and I see no reason to stop now!
My Dearest Spork,
I have known you all my life. You and your sisters were made before I was born, given as a gift to my mother, pleasing curved bodies for a pleasing curved body. I must confess I feared your femininity, the roundedness of your curves. I much preferred the masculine hard edges of my father’s splades. There was too much unknown, too much uncertain when faced with your deep bowl and stubby tines. Gazing into the curves of a spork I could become lost, gazing into the angles of a splade I always knew where I was, the geometry soothing.
My sister, having no such fear, preferred your sporkleyness and so, like many things between sisters, became a mark of our difference. She was spork, I was splade. She of fashion magazines and plucking. Me of grunge before grunge (though I hated Nirvana) and of almost setting fire to the curtains.
I loved that I preferred splade over spork. I loved the sense of agency it gave me, growing into self, growing into identity and developing preferences that were mine and decided by me alone. I conducted experiments to determine how I liked to butter my toast, how much jam or vegemite created the perfect sensation in my mouth. I knew what I wanted not in some arbitrary way, but with precision, with science.
Not wanting to be cruel in judgement of splade over spork I tested you both – spooning up baked beans from a bunnykins bowl (ever the water baby I preferred the bowl depicting bunnies washing up over bunnies baking cookies). The splade went in my mouth smoothly and precisely. You held more, but had edges that could catch. Your tines, although smaller, were sharper and more effective than the splades, but it felt a little dishonest the way they were concealed and I could not trust your proportions. And while I could eat faster with you (thereby saving the bunnies from a baked bean induced drowning all the faster. At times I would hold my breath with them so it wasn’t one sided) you didn’t give me the same consistency of sensory pleasure… and I do not like to eat too fast.
And so you see I preferred splade over spork not just because of some choosing of sides that seems mandatory for periods of time during the growth of a person (sister vs sister or mother vs father), but because of science. It was not personal… though truth be told I felt both cruel and powerful in asserting my preference.
I did not think I loved you spork, and yet, now that we are so far apart I miss you. I could buy some bland replacement, but it would not be the same. I remember your shape so vividly, the little notch you had up at the top of your outer tines, the stealth savagery you gave to an ordinary spoon. Splades without sporks feel empty and you gave me something so important, you gave me the power to choose.
Every day I could think what do I want? And life is lived in the details and these little moments were important in a world that seemed so uncertain. And sometimes I did choose you, and not always out of sympathy, and always always I was glad you were there. And if I could, if you were here in this city, in this country, I would chose you.
Perhaps this reads more as an apology rather than a letter of love, but truly I did love you. I cared about your well being and even now, when I am sorting through the cutlery draw, I will think of you and wish you were here.
With much affection.
E.M. Argall
