Lichtenbergian Proposed Efforts 2022

As you know if you’ve been around this blog for a while, the Lichtenbergian Society Annual Meeting is one of our two main RITUALS (the other being the Retreat). Our charter states that it shall be held on or before the Winter Solstice, and so we met in my living room on Sat, Dec 18, the labyrinth being too wet and cold for a comfortable meeting outside by the fire pit.

The central part of the Meeting is reviewing our Proposed Efforts from the just-concluded year and then proposing new Efforts for the coming year. This is my recap.

Lichtenbergian Proposed Efforts from 2021

Lichtenbergianism for Kids

Held over from 2020. I finished writing, illustrating, and laying it out, but feedback was tepid. It stalled out. Cras melior est.

Untitled children’s picture book

Held over from 2020. I finished this and tried to get illustrators interested in it, but again, no takers. I ABANDONED it to the universe.

Labyrinth

Held over from 2020. There were several projects I had tried to finish that I finally got done: leveling the southwest corner, revamping the northeast corner, the fence art project. I also had a new (and really nice) sound system installed. It was a hit on the Tour of Homes in October.

Alchemy

The plan was to be the Benevolent Placement Overlord™ for one more burn to solidify the map I’ve been working on for three burns, and of course we had to cancel Alchemy again. Cras melior est.

GALAXY

The GALAXY Project was an unmitigated success, thanks to Chief Engineer Turff’s dogged work on the technical/engineering aspects of the project.

As you can see, despite Mike Funt’s feeble attempt to portray my year as over-productive and therefore worthy of Censure, all my Proposed Efforts were holdovers from 2020, and only the labyrinth and GALAXY can be said to have been completed successfully.

What’s next?

Lichtenbergian Proposed Efforts for 2022

The Young Person’s Guide to Lichtenbergianism

I’m retitling Lichtenbergianism for Kids and making sure I am focused on a specific readership. However, this book may not see the light of day.

GALAXY/Alchemy

Follow my plan to be the Benevolent Placement Overlord™ one more burn, plus get GALAXY to as many burns as I can.

Midsummer Night’s Dream hybrid production

Paulo Manso de Sousa, of Southern Arc Dance, has invited me to work with him on a ballet of Midsummer Night’s Dream, a hybrid of dance and theatre. Some interesting ideas already afoot. Performance in 2023.

“The Score,” paint on printed vintage image

Waste art supplies

I will continue to explore with abandon some art stuff/things that involve recyclable/inexpensive materials.

Compose…?

One day Charles Ives came down the stairs from his music room and told his wife that the notes just weren’t there any more, and he never composed again. This has been my worry for the past three years: Am I through? Every meditation I’ve done on the topic suggests that I am not, but I cannot help but notice that after I set a Lichtenbergian intention a couple of years ago of not composing any music that the universe hadn’t asked for — the universe has not asked for any. We’ll see. I have some ideas. Let’s see if I add to my store of unperformed music.

Backstreet checkout system

Down at Backstreet Arts, I have designed a couple of Filemaker Pro databases to track attendance and to catalog the nearly 600 books in the library. Now I need to design the checkout system, with barcodes and everything.

Reconfigure the study

My study is a huge room, occupying most of the attic over the older part of our house, and it’s nearly full of stuff. I don’t know that I can make it less cluttered — it’s hard to put everything in its place when there’s no place to put it — but I’m going to try. [N.B.: This will not even begin to happen until after the Great unDecoratoring™.]

Project 20-2-2

This is my next big art project for the burn. Stay tuned.

There they are, my Efforts for 2022. All perfectly achievable. All perfectly avoidable. Failure is always an acceptable option. So is success.

What are your Proposed Efforts? If you share them in comments, I promise to circle back to them next year so you can report on your success/failure.

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