Ninth Wave Designs

Ideas Won't Keep: Cahier Idea Notebook

The title for the post comes from the following quote by Alfred North Whitehead:

"The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something must be done about them."

This is a combination post of "Quotes for Your Notebook" and "Moleskine Creations" themes, brought about by my need for a notebook to have handy to toss various ideas into.  I generally use my Moleskine Pocket Daily Diary to record stray thoughts and brief ideas - of the more random and passing nature of made up movie titles or simple plot outlines for stories I will never get around to writing.  I also needed a notebook that would provide the space for larger ideas, where I could write several pages compared to the several sentence lengths in my daily diary.  I chose a Moleskine large kraft Cahier with squared pages, but since I have several of these floating around for different uses I wanted the idea book to stand out from the others. 

I started by making the painting of the light bulb in my pocket size Moleskine Watercolor Reporter notebook.  I used watercolor colored pencils and Pitt brush markers to paint the image, and then removed the page from the notebook.  I cut a hole in the cover of the large Cahier in the shape of the light bulb, and then used a combination of glue stick and tape to secure the watercolor page inside the front cover.  I am happy with the results, and it is easy for me to find this notebook among the clutter on my desk.

If Alfred North Whitehead's words are to be followed, then something indeed needs to be done to keep our ideas - and the pages of a humble Cahier might be just the place for those vital intellectual adventures to work themselves out.

Quotes For Your Notebook: Jeanette Winterson

I have just finished reading Jeanette Winterson's latest book entitled Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles.  This book is part of a publisher's series called The Myths, which consists of various authors retelling a myth of their choice in a contemporary voice.  Other authors in the series include Karen Armstong (mentioned in THIS earlier post) and Margaret Atwood, whose book The Penelopiad I have waiting in the wings.

This addition to the Quotes For Your Notebook section comes from the introduction to the book:

"I believe there is always exposure, vulnerability, in the writing process, which is not to say it is either confessional or memoir. Simply, it is real."

In the retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Atlas and Heracles Ms. Winterson has accomplished something that I did not anticipate when beginning this book.  She has woven into her retelling an aspect of a particular myth of my childhood that I didn't realize needed retelling as well.  Three quarters of the way into this story she introduces the Russian space dog Laika, and interlaces that small dog's story with that of the great Titan Atlas.

Space travel was a larger-than-life factor in the mythos of my childhood, and I was familiar with the story of Laika's trip into space as part of that myth.  The story I read in grade school never mentioned that she died during her mission, but I knew without being told.  For some reason all of the great expansive American optimism associated with our early space program, contrasted with my instinctive sense of Laika's cruel claustrophobic end, generated a deep conflict in my young mind that is still with me.  Winterson has unexpectedly found a way to address my early established deep sense of suspicion, and offers a balm with these words:  "Laika was free."

I am thankful for Jeanette Winterson's willingness for exposure and vulnerability in her writing, in this book as well as her others. To paraphrase Winterson:  I want to read the story again.

Quotes For Your Notebook: Oliver Wendall Holmes, Sr.

My only association with Oliver Wendall Holmes, Sr. is from my high school English class, and having to read The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table.  I don't recall anything about that book, but it must have been better than reading James Fennimore Cooper (whom I dubbed "James Fenimore Awful"), since I didn't bother to come up with a derisive nick-name for Holmes.  Here instead is someone who speaks deeply to one of the major conundrums of my life:

"What refuge is there for the victim who is oppressed with the feeling that there are a thousand new books he ought to read, while life is only long enough for him to attempt a hundred?" -Oliver Wendall Holmes, Sr.

Consider too that Holmes lived in a time that didn't produce the millions of new titles every year that we are faced with having to prioritize our reading lists from.  The task is daunting. 

Take for example one area of reading that I enjoy: Mythology.  I had recently reached a place of comfort having acquired a selection of books by Joseph Campbell, and a few titles by Mircea Eliade, thinking I had enough good titles on mythology to stop looking for any more.  Yesterday I discovered that Karen Armstrong has published a new book, this time on the subject of mythology, called A Short History of Myth.  I have read many of Karen Armstrong's books, so now I feel compelled get that one too, since I am very curious to read what she has to say about mythology.  Just when I thought I had at least one subject covered, I add another book to the pile.  Is there no end?

I like the nostalgic feeling the Holmes quote provides, with the thought that reading 100 books in a lifetime is as much as is attainable.  There was a time then, when reading 100 books (although clearly not enough) seemed like what was achievable in a lifetime.  From the perspective of Holmes' time period I am doing pretty well, having read at least 100 books by now (likely many more than that), and (unless something unsuspected occurs) with many years still ahead of me.

I haven't read much the last few days.  I suffered a serious brain cramp on Monday after reading a particularly mind expanding bit of Jungian psychology.  It actually made my brain hurt.  It was a good pain, the sort of "feel the burn" sensation that lets you know you have expanded your capacity to think, but still, the kind of pain that lets you know when it's time to back off.  I decided to give it a rest and to allow these new ideas sink in and mellow among the other collected ideas from my lifetime of reading.  I have taken refuge, for a few days anyway, in the understanding that I am doing a pretty good job, at least by 19th century standards, of getting my fill of books.

That is, of course, until the Karen Armstrong book arrives from Amazon.

Quotes For Your Notebook: 2006 Moleskine Pocket Weekly Diary

The page layout for the 2006 Moleskine Pocket Weekly Diary has had me thinking since I first saw it back in August.  The format of short lined segments broken down into individual days, organized succinctly across a two-page spread containing a week at a time, has been begging for a creative use beyond the obvious schedule planner.  I don't keep a schedule, it's one of the joys of self-employment that I don't have many appointments to keep, no meetings to go to, and few reasons to mark a calendar beyond what my wall calendar can handle.  I really have no use for a Moleskine Weekly Planner in the traditional sense, but the format is so compelling I was determined to find a reason to keep one.

My first thought was that it would make a great short-form daily diary, with entries of just a few sentences each along the lines of "did this", "went here", "saw that".  The one problem with that idea is that there is very little of doing this, going there or seeing that in my day-to-day life, since I basically spend my day in front of my computer. 

Then the idea struck me: A diary of quotations.  So I have begun recording a quote per daily slot, with the goal of filling the whole diary by the end of the year with quotations I gather from my reading from 2006.  It will be a kind of perpetual quote-a-day diary that I can refer to over and over again, and will at the same time be a reflection of the reading I did in this year.  The space allotted per day calls for the kind of short and pithy quotes I tend to love. So far this has been a great project, and in addition to the individual quotation I am recording the book from which it originated, in case I want to re-visit it sometime in the future.

I will leave you with one of the first quotes I entered into my Quote Diary:

"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." - Albert Einstein.

Click on picture for a larger version.

Quotes For Your Notebook: Sarah Vowell

This latest quote is from the book Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell, and addresses the "Grandfather Paradox" concerning time travel.

"The grandfather paradox poses this riddle: What if a person traveled back in time, encountered her grandfather, got into an argument with the grandfather, and then shot her grandfather to death, thereby ensuring that the granddaughter herself would never be born?

What I like about the grandfather paradox is that it treats time travel not as some lofty exercise in cultural tourism - looking over Melville's shoulder as he wrote Moby-Dick - but as a petty excuse to bicker with and gun down one's own relatives."

I have encountered this paradox in several books dealing with the concept of time, and in EVERY sci-fi TV series I have ever seen, but never has it been presented in such a revealing manner.  When I read this I howled with laughter, seeing for the first time, compliments of Vowell's trademark droll humor, just how ridiculous the Grandfather Paradox is.  Why such violent ideas associated with time travel, as if it would be impossible to go back in time and not turn into the Terminator?  "Grandfather, I'll be baahk".

If you are not familiar with Sarah Vowell I would recommend first hearing her read her essays on This American Life or as a book on tape.  I find I cannot read her books without hearing her voice narrating them in my head, and frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way, no matter how psychotic that sounds.  Her voice is essential to the delivery; otherwise you just might miss the subtlety of the humor.  Incidentally, Vowell is the voice behind the awkward daughter Violet in the Pixar movie The Incredibles.

It is no suprise to me that Vowell would excel at providing voice acting for animated characters, since, until I actually saw what she looked like, I always pictured Velma from the Scooby-Doo cartoons when I heard her radio essays.   Even now that I have seen a picture of Ms. Vowell I still think she looks like Velma (without the glasses).  If they make another live action Scooby - Doo movie (not that I'm hoping they will) I think they would do well to cast Sarah Vowell as Velma and make it her movie: Then everyone could share my vision. If the main plot line involved time travel Vowell (as Velma) would have the opportunity to act out the Grandfather Paradox on the big screen providing for some great action scenes, i.e. Velma as the Terminator with a sawed-off shotgun in hand. I can hear her in my head now - "Jinkies, Granddad, I'll be baahk".

Quotes For Your Notebook: Magical Alphabet

This latest quote from the pages of my Moleskine pocket diary is from the beginning of the book Mysteries of the Alphabet by Marc-Alain Ouaknin:

"The magical alphabet, the mysterious hieroglyphic, merely reach us incomplete and distorted, either by time or by those very people who have a vested interest in our ignorance; let us find the lost letter or obliterated sign, let us re-create the dissonant scale and we shall gain strength from the world of the mind." - Gérard de Nerval (1808 - 1855)

It is precisely the mysterious aspect of ancient scripts that makes them compelling to the artist and poet alike.  Nerval was a French poet and bohemian, a friend of Baudelaire.  I am not sure what larger context this quote is taken from, but I gather from reading his short biography HERE that he was the kind of writer that was drawn into the mysteries of ancient signs and symbols.  As an artist it has always been interesting for me to try to see beyond the commonplace usage of language to the deeper symbols embedded in the words and letters themselves.  Nerval's quote is a call to examine this magical aspect of the alphabet, and he even tempts us with a touch of conspiracy theory suggesting that there are deliberate means that keep us from knowing the truth.  The challenge is finding something within the symbols of letters, whether contemporary or ancient, that carries deeper meaning for ourselves, since the original meaning attributed by the first writers of these alphabets are forever lost to us.  Perhaps it was the way the first writing tools fit the hand that influenced their forms, that the charcoal stick or quill played an integral part in their development and left their own natural imprint into this human communication.  Whatever the origin, whatever the form, Nerval's quote asks us to take time to contemplate these letterforms as a way to strengthen our minds.  Considering that many early Greek philosophers felt that writing weakens the mind by removing the need for memorization, it may be good advice indeed!

Magical Alphabet quote from my Moleskine diary.

Here are a few good books on the history of the alphabet:

Mysteries of the Alphabet by Marc-Alain Ouaknin

The Alphabetic Labyrinth: Letters in History and Imagination by Johanna Drucker

Magical Alphabets by Nigel Pennick

The Alphabet Abecedarium: Some Notes on Letters by Richard A. Firmage

Quotes For Your Notebook: Jorge Luis Borges

This latest Moleskine-worthy quote comes from Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899 - 1986):

"I do not write for a select minority, which means nothing to me, nor for that adulated platonic entity know as "The Masses."  Both abstractions, so dear to the demagogue, I disbelieve in.  I write for myself and for my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time."

On first reading this it simply sounds like good advice from an experienced writer: Ignore the ideals of writing for a specific audience and write for yourself and your friends.  As a writer seeking advice you will find a number of experienced writers offering similar advice such as "write what you know" or "write for yourself". But it is the last detail, where Borges says he wrote to ease the passing of time, which offers me the deepest insight.  It gets closer to the heart of the creative process, beyond what to write or who to write for, to the more philosophical question of motivation: Why write?  His advice is especially compelling when you take into account that Borges often wrote stories as a way to explore the elusive nature of time.

The passing of time can be a difficulty for some, especially those who have chosen a type of life that is outside of the main-stream "fast lane". The so called "examined life" has its own sense of time.  Writers, artists, anyone with a creative approach to their work, often take a sideways step to gain perspective on their subjects.  This awareness creates the possibility for original thinking, but can equally create a sense of uneasiness at being out of step with everyday experiences as well.  Writing, as a way to ease that difficulty, can become essential to maintaining that point of view.  Writing becomes a balm to ease the passage of time.  If you take time to write on a regular basis, then you may have had this experience too: Lying in bed, waiting for sleep, confronting the passing of another day, and feeling good (at the very least) for having written that day.

I was not familiar with Borges writing until I was introduced to him through the artwork of Magic Fly Paula (see the post and the NWD Guest's Gallery HERE).  His writing is a major influence in the fantastic and dreamlike images she creates, and after reading his short story The Book of Sand online through one of her links I was hooked.  My local public library has a copy of his short stories also entitled The Book of Sand, and the above quote comes from the author's note to that collection. This collection appears to be out of print, but you can read the short story through an interesting website HERE.

Thanks Paula!

Quotes For Your Notebook: Oscar Wilde

I came across the following quote on the AddAll book search website.  They post interesting quotes while you wait for their engine to search the web for the best book prices.  My search timed out before it could finish so I never did find the book I was looking for, but at least I got this nice little tidbit out of it:

"The only thing worse in the world than being talked about is not being talked about."  -- Oscar Wilde

As a relative newcomer to the blogosphere this hit home in a pretty specific way.  I have managed to pick up a small but steady stream of regulars (thanks, Mom, for your dedication) which is a nice feeling to have when tackling a new post, but the perils of blogging are not lost to me.  What if I make a blog and nobody comes?  In blogging terms, the "talking about" that Mr. Wilde mentions is easily translated into blog comments.  What if I write a post and nobody comments?  It is difficult to imagine that Oscar Wilde had to worry too much about not being talked about, but with the number of blogs rapidly approaching the number of places beyond the decimal point that have been calculated for Pi it is entirely possible that no one will come to my blog party.  The decorations are up, the candles are lit, but there is this nagging feeling that something essential is missing.

I can see a compelling parallel between blog writing and notebook writing. For many Moleskine users their notebooks have become a kind of "analog blog".  This provides endless opportunity for personal satisfaction, creative outlet and growth and is an end in itself.  But what of Mr. Wilde's astute observation?   Digital or analog, deep in our hearts we want to know what others think of us, and a purely personal one-on-one relationship with your notebook (or your blog) doesn't provide any of the kind of satisfaction that he suggests is so important to us.

This is why I think there is such a strong sense of community surrounding Moleskine notebooks.  Have you ever been in a cafe, writing or sketching in your Moleskine and then seen another solitary caffeine imbiber doing the same?  What a sense of comradery this creates, even if nothing is spoken between the two of you!  I personally get so much enjoyment out of having these notebooks that I have a natural inclination to want to talk to people about it.  Additionally I am really curious about what other people are putting in their Moleskines.  Apparently, I am not alone in this feeling, as there are many creative ways on the web that Moleskine users have found to share their enthusiasm for their Moleskine notebooks as well as their contents. This innate need to know what others have to say about us has taken the normally solitary act of writing (drawing, doodling, etc.) in notebooks and turned it into a complex community of Moleskine related information online. In this way, notebook and sketchbook entries that were created in isolation become part of a larger community, and the opportunity exists to find out what others think about what we have to express between the pages of our Moleskines.

So many people are blogging about their Moleskine notebooks; how much they like using them, the ways they put them to use, what they are putting between the pages.  What is a blog if it is not a community, a gathering spot on the exponentially expanding web for even just a few like minded individuals? The next time you are cruising the web and you come across a blog were someone has shared the contents of their notebook, let them know what you think.  You will be doing them a big favor and saving them from the worst thing in the world, at least according to Oscar Wilde.

Quotes For Your Notebook: Patty Larkin

This is the first of a string of brief posts I have planned that will feature what I consider to be Moleskine-Worthy quotations.  These are the kind of things that usually land on the pages of my daily diary or in my 'catchall' notebook.  My aim is to use this string to share words that will hopefully get you started writing, sketching or ranting between the covers of your little black notebook.

The first of these quotes comes from singer/songwriter Patty Larkin.  It is an excerpt from lyrics to her song "Johnny was a Pyro" from her 1995 CD "Stranger's World".  Ms. Larkin is an amazing guitarist, singer and songwriter, but additionally has a brilliant sense of humor.  I felt this was particularly worthy of recording in my Moleskine due to the Hemingway reference fitting in with the Moleskine Marketing Mythos. Whenever I hear this line is makes me chuckle:

"We were a couple of kids crawling out of the crib
Talking about the positives and the negatives of wine
Living our lives just like Hemingway did
But he was lucky, he was a genius most of the time."

Visit her website HERE or listen to excerpts from the CD HERE.