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UNLIKELY_PLACES

                                             August 9, 2010

   A phrase that's been echoing
   around in my head of late:
   "looking for enlightenment
   in unlikely places".

       In general, it's
       something I do too
       much of, I suspect.

       There are a few things that can be
       said in it's defense: if you're going
       to try to have original thoughts, it
       makes sense to put some unusual
       things in your head to work with.

       And sometimes, every now and then,
       neglected masterpieces are discovered,        SLUSH
       elevated in retrospect (and sometimes
       I agree they should've been elevated):
       how can that happen if no one is willing
       to look in the dark corners?

                            DARK_CORNERS

   Some exercises:

   "The first sentence test":

   Pick up a large stack of
   "poetry journals", of
   any vintage (I have a         Publications I have reason to
   few feet of them, myself).    respect (e.g. "Poetry")
                                 should probably not be included.

   Go through the stack, looking at
   *every* article or poem ,
   reading only the first 2-3
   lines.  Tag ones that seem at          TWO_LEVEL
   all promising.  Go back and dig
   through those for one that looks       The hope would be that
   worthy of close attention.             most authors have the
                                          sense to put the good
                                          stuff up front as a hook.



   "Read the thing you never read":

    What is it I never touch?

    An old answer for me was
    "Romance novels", so I read              ROMANCE
    one.  But that was some time
    back, and I would guess the       Oh, and I tend to ignore categories like
    new breed of young adult          feminist/gay/black presuming that it's
    romance novels must differ.       just whiney "identity politics" that
                                      doesn't even have anything to do with my
    Another was "self-help            identity.
    books", so I've
    periodically dipped into                             But gender, sexual
    Carnegie... but I've                                 preference, etc. are
    read very little of his                              near the core of what
    many imitators.            CARNEGIE
                                                         it's about to be
    Still another was "rock-bios"                        human.  There's many
    so I've looked at a few.                             an interesting work
                                                         resting beneath my
       DIONYSIAN_SOAP                gaze in one of those
                                                         sections that "are
    What else?  There are other                          not for me".
    celebrity bios, like hollywood
    books for example.                                   This suggests a
                                                         dice game in a
    It occurs to me that I may not                       used book store...
    have ever read a single work of
    military history.                                    DICE

    I'm very light on the original
    published journals that much
    of the adventure fiction I read
    was based on (e.g. "Two Years
    Before the Mast").

    I suppose I could read some of
    the *fiction* reviewed in the
    "New York Review of Books", but
    that's going a little too far.


    "Bottom feeding"

     Do a web search (on what terms?)
     but intentionally drill down
     to near the bottom of the ranking,
     trying to find the unregarded.


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