3:15 Experiment

I love grand scale writing experiments and collaborative projects.  I really want to get involved in a collaborative poetry project, but I really need to read more about them to come up with a project that actually produces a pretty final product.  Wow, I really am prone to random alliteration...

In any case, I'm going to be taking part in the 3:15 Experiment throughout August.  I actually just stumbled upon this gem of a collaborative writing project-- am doing a presentation on Lee Ann Brown as part of my summer poetry writing class (which in turn is part of my directed Capstone research- how confusing!).  Anyway, Lee Ann in herself is fascinating-- it is nice to study poets who are alive and producing, but the project itself is really exciting.

From the lovely 3:15 Experiment website (the Facebook site has informed me that the website will be updated in September with August writings of this year added), a description of the project:

HOW TO PLAY:

• Begin at 3:15 AM on August 1st (so set your alarms on JULY 31) . Continue each day until August 31.
• You may write any length, style, form, content, voice, rhythm, etc.
• DO NOT EDIT your work. This is raw stuff, baby. That's part of the experiment. You are welcome to edit, collage, break apart the poems later for whatever purpose you choose, but please SHARE THE RAW STUFF with the rest of the group here or on the website once the experiment is over.
• (Optional) Do not read what you have written until the month is over, except to skim the work to make sure everything is legible.

TIP: do not use a felt tip pen unless you don't care about ink stains on your bed. Many a poet has fallen asleep in the middle of writing.

If you can help it, don't even get out of bed! The point is to ride that dream state, that precarious point between sleeping and waking and sleeping.

I love the "playful" tone.  It actually reminds me of my Tai Chi/Qigong instructor.  Every time a new students shows up for class, he asks, "have you come to play?"  It's just such a lovely word, whimsical and with the idea of a child playing in the freeness of summer.  Anyway, the sigh in those thoughts is audible.

I think sometimes I need to focus more on doing things because they're fun (or, as they say in Kamikaze Girls, 楽しいから！).  If you are passionate about personal projects and academic efforts, they will inevitably merge or somehow tightly interrelate.  Remember Richard Feynman playing Frisbee with a plastic plate led to the thought-turned-equation that won him the Nobel Prize.

And so, I will be writing some presumably very short free-thought pieces throughout the month of August at the ungodly a.m. time of 3:15.  We'll see how it goes-- being an insomniac, the idea of purposefully disrupting a possible sleep seems very much on the verge of self-flagellation.  And the cats may pounce me to death :)

In any case, I'll be putting up a counter marking days gone, to go somewhere about on this page.  Those sorts of things are insanely ridiculous, but they motivate me nonetheless. (speaking of which, I should probably update my book count.  The movie count remains the same :S).