i am a liar and i am a lier.

i wake up to the sound of the cat chewing paper (rising with the dawn, not to work beyond the setting sun).

it’s sunday morning [(how is it already sunday morning again?] the weekend is not over).

it’s chilly outside but I open the window for the cat anyway because sometimes i like to extend this tiny apartment through space by the open window extensions too. i make her a blanket window seat to equalize the sensations of in/out. i wrap up in a blanket too, mug of coffee, equalizing alertness with a mind that tends to wander. within two minutes the heat is coming on to equalize temperature, and she is on my lap (we are comfortably occupying inter-spaces).

i keep wondering what it means to be an artist. and what i can replace that term and its associations with by my actions. as a compositionist i am bringing together, cutting, layering, juxtaposing, prying into in-between spaces, and looking to word debris and word dust and word created and left in unintentional time capsules. this word is not just word. this word is not just text. this text is not just text (i am a compositionist in a field of writers, scholars, and artists).

i wrote a list in class the other day while the students worked at computers (i have fits of creativity):

a pond

a mirror

a prism

a magnifying glass

a pair of glasses (spectacles)

a pair of binoculars

a telescope

a microscope

a television

an omniscient narrator

it was/is a questioning of what i was/am valuing in the classroom/education and the role i had/have as the role students look to for guidance to what is important to know and in what ways this knowing should be demonstrated (“students should be able to______________________”). i have been privileging metaphors of seeing and observation, but then what am i neglecting? in illuminating one, the other(s) lay in shadow. what i want to know is, how can i see sounds? train the ear to see like we teach our eyes.

shift//

i want to work with sound more. my captivation with imagetext is not/never will be over, but i want to show students compositions like this (warning: noisy and dischordant to many – i am on a liars bender lately):

it has/does small-t truth tellings, soundbite sized experience and communication, layers, creates happening spaces in between juxtapositions and pairings, doesn’t care for musical “mastery” but exploration of the spirit of trying things and being unapologetic about the composition its creativity has assembled.

maybe composition in parts is more easily seen when it is heard?

what can i listen/see from here? following my ear and eye.

it’s now sunday night and i’m still thinking in flipping frames and freezes. flash animations. remixes and remediations. compilations of composing of pieces and pieces (composites). after listening to burroughs, negativland, and (more) liars, i want to spend my winter break composing a digital cv with video/animation.

mind moves in flits and fits.