Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär und auch zwei Flügel hätt…

So, about this revision… It’s been weighing on me like a ton of bricks. How, When, Is it even worth it?!* Brains, well, ‘brain’ has been wracked. Stress has been stressed. Not a small amount of flopsweat has issued forth from tired pores.

Last night I got it. Or at least I think I did. From a most unexpected place, too. I use, or try to use, a technique in visual art** that allows for multiple points of entry. It sounds more complicated than it is. Basically, it’s something that I picked up (another random point of entry!) from working with a particular old, yet still standard programming language. It simply means that a calculation, or piece, or text, if you will, is equally valid from any point in a sequence to the end.  Every element means itself entirely. Every function is true and valid.

For any math or programming geeks who might be reading this, yes…I’ve co-opted Reverse Polish Notation for the arts. If you cannot understand why/how, then please reread Gödel, Escher, Bach.

Anyway, the story is heavily steeped in music. Heavily tied (in my head) the two main characters. I thought that if I de-stabilized either of these two connections, I could see something new, or at least see another way in.  I changed a name or two and started sketching out to no avail. Then I changed the music…in quite possibly the most random act of the day…the some old Volkslied. Then it happened. I sketched with wild abandon for an hour. Then I looked at it, and lo– it wasn’t sketch, it was a whole new beginning for one of the characters! Now, honestly, there is no way in hell I’m transforming this into a story which will rely heavily on German folk songs. I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t do that to myself. And in the spirit of full disclosure: I was a little tipsy for the last half of the experiment.

But it was enough of a disruption to pull me into a different part of the ‘operation’…a different line in the command, if you will. And (hopefully) this will help me move inward and onward with a slightly askew perspective, which is how I prefer my perspective anyway.

Thank god I absorbed all of that random Art Song in my previous incarnation as a singer. I just knew it’d end up being good for something down the line.

*Side note: we need to glorify and revive the interrobang.

**Another side note: have not touched a canvas in over 12 months.

And, umm…just in case you’re curious: “Were I a little bird, and had two little wings, I’d fly to you…“

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~ by weltschmerz on August 1, 2010.