Tuesday, December 5, 2006

I posted this and thought it might deserve a copy paste here.

I too have found that listing is incredibly intense. Listing pleasantries makes me feel good, listing things I don't like makes me feel bad.

A fun thing to do is to list pleasantries and then match different items from the list into completely newborn pleasantries.

For instance:
I like the think about:[and so I list]
beautiful women
birds
electronic music making machines
synesthestes
paper bags

[so then I pick a few]
synthestes & beautiful women

[of course I could simply say that beautiful female synthestes are "awesome", but I can invest more energy until I get extremely enthused; so I decide to ask myself what the most desirable qualities and/or contexts are for these examples. I will say that I like the idea of synthestes cause I like thinking about relationships between colors and sounds and letters and colors and tastes and touch. I like the idea that my senses are related and that I could possibly experience another layer of beauty.
As for beautiful women, I prefer speaking of context; I like thinking about beautiful women who are incredibly creative living in loft apartments and doing cute little things while making beautiful music; you know, Amelie-style.
So, unexpectantly, I've found that these two examples in my list are actually rather similar and I seem to like expansive applications for light/sound/and art. In synthesetes, it is an expansion through multiple senses, and with my beautiful women fantasy, it is an expansion through someone elses life.]

I understand that this is loose and confusing, but this shows another quality of listing, that it is a verb and not a noun. No one will grok your list like you do, but if you do it well, you will be sufficiently excited about it enough that others will see how much you enjoy it and they may share the experience by making their own list.

Obviously, you have touched on a pleasant nerve.
-clyde