Issue 3
August
15
2001
bluetyger editorial...
WaterFest 2001 Art Exhibit After Action Report...
Gibson WaterFest Portofolio...
Battle of Georgian Bay...
Anne Langford - Poetry...
Jacques-Henri Lartigue - Photographer
Poems Erratic by William J. Gibson...
4 old cameras...
2x golden 3...
Summer reading...
Editor: William J. Gibson
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bluetyger editorial August 15, 2001
by William J. Gibson
Waterfest 2001 Fine Art Exhibition took place on August 3-5 next to the town dock in Midland, Ontario, as a major component of the overall WaterFest event. As suggested in the last issue of bluetyger, I did in fact exhibit photographic images for sale. It was a little warm. But a good time was had by all. There are two articles in this isse about WaterFest, see the contents box on the left side of this page. You will find a WaterFest report mostly listing who exhibited, many fine artists, and a second article about my images and how they come to be made. Again thanks to Orton T. Carberry, the organizer and the person where the buck stopped in all matters seemingly unresolvable in the preparation and execution of the WaterFest Fine Art Exhbition.
The bluetyger article in this issue shows some photos from the 1998 version of the Battle of Georgian Bay and a link to the official website.
I can hear you right now. I can't do that. Well, actually you can do it a lot more often than you might think. Starting late never helps. But there is a shortcut. If you are working at home, try this. Instead of a full day away from the material, take 45 minutes. Throw on a movie tape, one you know, one you like. Sit back and watch 45 minutes of the movie. You are changing your brain's gear from the written page to the visual screen. I believe that this is more refreshing than a cat nap, or some other kind of break. You are actually pushing all that brain storage of the writing torture out and make your brain change modes and take in visual enjoyment. If I'm wrong, prove it, let me hear if it doesn't work.
This rule applies to any writing. But it came to the world out of poets' workshop that I belonged to, and it was an informal assembly that fell out of university, St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto, around 1977. Ah sweet bird of youth.
When you write, there is stuff in your head. You believe that you have written down all the stuff from your head that the reader -- who you think about a whole lot of the time, right? -- needs to see to understand what you want them to understand. Mental arithmetic is my phrase for when you kid yourself into thinking you got it all down on the page. That being all you needed not all of it. The selected necessary information. That is a big difference right there. When you practice mental arithmetic, you read the page, which may have 50% of the right stuff and in your mind since you know it cold, you add 50% and arrive at 100%. Your reader reads the page and sees half, not whole. That is mental arithmetic.
More next issue. bluetyger is an online magazine with articles on literature, writing, work, art, travel, technology, photography, and a host of other topics. Evolution continues. This is definitely a work in progress. This being both explanation and excuse. Mostly I like to write. I also like to take photographs. Interesting things to me, I want to share. So I have this general notion and direction and I am going to move forward with it.
Comments welcome, use the email link above.
Why "bluetyger"? Blue is my favourite colour. "Tyger" is my favourite animal and Mr. William Blake spelled it that way some years back.
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Summer - part deux : art, history, writing
The Battle of Georgian Bay takes place August 23-26 in Midland and Penetanguishene.
This re-enactment will involve over a thousand people, who have put their interest in history into direct action, to make or acquire historically accurate clothing/uniforms, weapons and other equipment. They do their best to turn the clock back and live in an earlier time.
About that writing "thang"....I had the opportunity to work with someone struggling to complete a master thesis paper this week. Pursuing this academic goal is a long hard road. Everybody can write. Everybody went to school and was taught how to write. But the real truth of it is that writing is easy, rewriting is the hard bit. Taking wordy or unclear passages that try to communicate the knowledge inside one's head, knowledge that seems obvious and that is because someone who is chasing a masters becomes a real live expert, and changing the words on the page to get rid of clutter, smooth transitions, eliminate needless details, all of that is not really what they done taught you in school. Unless you had a really good teacher or two. The ugly truth of the matter is that in business and yes, in school, at the post-secondary level, we hand in first drafts far too often. Why? TIME. TIME used to be a good magazine, but once they added the five o'clock shadow to that cover photo of O.J., they lost me as a subscriber. That would be one case where going with the first draft would be a good thing, In truth, the only thing. First draft syndrome can be beat, with luck and a good sized chunk of discipline. Here is my trick for you if you have neither. Lie about when you're going to be ready. If it is due Friday. Say yeah, you will be ready Friday noon. Truth is you will be ready Tuesday 5 p.m. That is when you will complete your solid first draft. Then you need to do trick part b. Trick part b is simply this. You need to take 24 hours and not look at your writing. Then go and rewrite and rewrite like hell on Thursday. Also, have someone who done never looked at it before, rub their eyeballs over it. Also, read it out loud. Errors that your eyes may forgive, your ear will shatter over and you will have to fix them.
I have a number of odd hobbies and one is to look for remaindered books on the subject of writing. Some of these are honest-to-God textbooks, others more casual but still in lots of cases, very helpful books on the subject of writing. I may just browse through this strange part of my library and put together some small pieces about the writing thang.
Let me start with Gibson's rule of mental arithmetic.
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photo top of this page is of the Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre, near Midland, Ontario, photo by William J. Gibson
Contents Copyright (C) 2001 William J. Gibson.
Articles and photos are Copyright (C) 2001 by their respective authors.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in any form without prior written consent from the author(s).
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