Class Takeaway 5

I think the "What If..." questions we wrote are going to be a big help in the fishbowling of this assignment. At first I didn't know if I could do 50 questions but it seemed around half way they came easier and easier, but then near the end they were more difficult to think of. After turning in my questions I took a look around my classmates' submissions. I thought they were remarkably similar in some cases. People seemed to really explore the transformative nature of their "Altared" book.

I am looking forward to physically changing my book too. So much so that I am debating doing multiple changes to it. Maybe making it like "This Is Not a Book"? We'll see.

Just so I have a record of this for the Bliss assignment I think that my ideal creative space is a coffee-shop-like space. Some place where there are other people being creative but it isn't a super-traditional creative atmosphere like a library. This assignment in particular should help me find the creative space that best suits me and that would be a huge help to me on my creative journey!

What if I slept on my book for a night?

Sleeping on our book put made us to think about our book in an altered mindset, which in this case was sleep. My experience was quite uncomfortable, probably because my book is large and my pillows are old and flat. Which reminds me: I need new pillows. I don’t know if I gained any new what if’s about my book from sleeping on it, but maybe they’re just in my sub conscious.

1. What if I showed the book aging?

2. What if I changed the book from a negative to a positive?

3. What if I found some serendipitous way to change it?

4. What if I found the value of this book?

5. What if everything was worth something?

6. What if I aged the book and did something cool with the result?

7. What if I made paper airplanes out of the pages and threw them all?

8. What if I made tea paint portraits?

9. What if I explored how the book ages?

10. What if I knew the origin of the book, but changed the final product?

11. What if I threw the pages off of a building?

12. What if I made a portrait?

13. What if it had a message?

14. What if I made it a positive message?

15.  What if I wrote in the book to change it?

16. What if I constructed something with it?

17. What if the book was no more?

18. What if I explored the utility of my book?

19. What if I am not really upset with the book itself but with the experiences I have had with it?

20. What if I gave the book away?

21.  What if I reorganized the pages?

22. What if I turned the book into a game?

23. What if I cut out all the letters and made a self-portrait?

24. What if I wrote a poem out of the reorganized words?

25. What if somebody else could enjoy the book?

26. What if I left parts of the book in different places?

27. What if I took the book on a journey?

28. What if I made a piñata and filled it with word confetti?

29. What if I made the book into a secret code?

30. What if I used the book as a hiding place for things I don’t want people to find?

31. What if I used the book as a chemistry experiment?

32. What if I left the pages out in the sun?

33.  What if I reorganized the book and left notes in public places using the words?

34. What if I reorganized the words and made lyrics and recorded the book to make a song?

35. what if I rewrote the book but changed some words and gave it to somebody?

36. What if I forgot about the book?

37. what if I yelled at the book?

38 what if I made a collage out of all the pictures in my book?

39 what if I used the book in a ritual?

40 waht fi I msisellped lal eht drwos ni eht kobo?

41. What if I made a decoration for my mantle?

42. What if I used the book to clean my mantle?

43. What if I used the book to usher in the spring time (this winter has been very cold and snowy)?

44. What if I made the pages into flowers and gave them to people I cared about?

45. what if the book was food?

46. What if the book was plant food?

47. What if I could grow food from my book?

48. What if I left the book at the bus stop outside my window and listened to people use it?

49 What if I did science and poured different things on the book?

50.  What if the book became my diary and I recorded my thoughts in the margins

Class Takeaway 4

I took away the great ideas my classmates had about the concept of opportunities. I really enjoyed seeing about all of their projects and ideas.

I think the one that resonated the most with me is the one girl whose project was to let another classmate know that her ideas were not shit. I think that was a really touching sentiment. With all the other projects focused on being creative and focusing that creative energy on ourselves, it was refreshing to see somebody focus that energy to another human being. It was selfless and beautiful.

Opportunities in Every Bottle

I have something wrong with me.

For almost three years I have been brewing my own beer. I have quite a bit of money invested in my setup and generally take great joy when a beer turns out great, and look to see how I can improve with each beer that didn't turn out as I had hoped it would. This winter I brewed about 25 gallons to keep me happy and warm, and so I would not have to make more outside (I have to boil my beer for about an hour and must do so outside). I still have ten gallons to go through. I am in college. I have friends.

I have something wrong with me.

I have wanted to brew another beer for early spring for a while now and have had several ideas floating around in my head. Fruit beers have interested me. Chili beers too. But -- nah. I want to try something crazy.

What is crazier than tequila?

That's right I want to do a tequila beer. A beer with all the hoppy goodness you would expect from a glass of foamy frothy goodness and then a firm smack in the face from the agave angel herself.

Brewing beer is an experiment each and every time. I have brewed the same recipe, aged the same amount of time and still come out with drastically different flavor profiles. I think each batch of beer represents a really unique opportunity to learn something new and grow as a brewer. I am friends with brewers for production breweries and they learn something new everyday about an art and science that has been around for thousands of years.

My recipe is from a kit-- so not my own creation. It is from a company called northern brewer.

O.G: 1.074      READY: 6 WEEKS
SPECIALTY GRAIN
- 3/4 lb English Dark Crystal
FERMENTABLES
- 3.15 lbs Gold malt syrup (60 min)
- 1 lb Corn Sugar (60 min)
- 6 lbs Gold malt syrup late addition (15 min)
HOPS & FLAVORINGS
- 1 oz Warrior (60 min)
- 1 oz Mosaic (20 min)
- 2 oz Mosaic (10 min)
DRY HOPS
- 2 oz Mosaic
YEAST OPTIONS
- Liquid yeast Option: Wyeast #1056 American Ale. Optimum
temperature: 60–72°F
- Liquid yeast Option: White Labs WLP001 California Ale.
Optimum temperature: 68–73°F

Doodle Dawdlin'

The "S" that I chose to dwell upon while making my marks was "synchronicity". I re-watched the video on doodling, wanting to reconnect with our class lecture on our egg projects and the topics we talked about. I thought it was interesting what happened.

I was watching the show on Netflix "Idiot Abroad" with my lady friend. Something occurred to me that hadn't before -- Beth Lykins is the polar opposite of Karl Pilkington (the main character of the "travel show"). If Karl is a character construction from Ricky Gervais and his producers then that man is a fucking genius. Karl is a completely sheltered, unambitious, and self-absorbed individual who is absolutely terrified of the outside world. He hates being in the outdoors, or being surrounded by people, or really just being in a situation that puts him into an experience that he has never had before.

To remember this thought, I wrote "Plikington" on my paper. Don't know if words are allowed in a doodle -- don't care because its mine.

This was not a typo. I wrote "Plikington". I have had a sneaking suspicion that I am dyslexic for a very long time. I was kicked out of my advanced classes I was assigned to when I was in elementary school because I had the hardest time deciding between what was a "b" and what was a "d". It was a struggle and I wrote that on my doodle too.

Which is an interesting transition because during that time I used to think that doodling was possibly the worst thing I could have done with my time in grade school. I used to think that the kids who were reprimanded for it simply didn't care which was a travesty in my mind. I did well in school. I guess I just didn't know that other people learned in different ways.

This video was interesting because it showed me that people who doodle or let their mind wander are in fact engaging MORE of their brain than others. I like being engaged. But doodling doesn't seem like the answer. I want to connect with the instructor and let them know that I am engaged so this was a difficult concept for me to wrap my mind around because I feel that I am dividing my attention between what I am "selfishly" working on (mah doodlez) and the ideas the teacher is trying to convey.

I really wanted to write some more "synchronous" ideas for this, but this is what I discovered about my doodling.