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CONSUMING_FLAME

                                            June   21, 2003
                                Additions:  August 10, 2004
                                            July   15, 2012

Experiments in reading:

  Read nothing but poetry
  for an entire
    weekend                                     Experiments in listening:
    week
    month                                          Intentional overplay

  Try to reinterpret                                     TOTAL_IMMERSION
  it's devices.

     Read the line breaks                            There's a book by
     as much shorter                                 Pauline Oliveros
     pauses than you                                 that includes many
     usually do.                                     musical compositions
                                                     that are essentially
  Try pretending they're not                         meditation games to
  there, read it straight                            be played with producing
  through like prose.                                and listening to sound.

     Find on-line poetry
     that you can
     automatically             BROKEN_LINES
     reformat as you like.


  Read aloud.

  Read aloud on tape.


Directed programs.

Decide you're going to get into a subject,
focus on it for months.  E.g. "urban planning".


Greater focus.

Pick a single thing, a book
(even something shorter) and
read it through without           Pick just a part of the
getting distracted by other       work to focus on...
things (no newspapers, no         Don't get distracted by
web sites, etc).                  it's bulk.

                                             FIRST13
When you reach the end,
start reading it again                 Pretend that the book you're
from the beginning.                    reading has been serialized
                                       in a magazine.  Divide it
                                       into 4 parts, read just one,
                                       and then stop for a month.

                                       You're allowed to re-read
                                       previous parts while waiting
                                       for the month to elapse.



                   Stop thinking like a
                   consumer, and think              Stop asking yourself
                   like an artist.                  "What do I feel like
                                                    doing now?" and instead
                   You are creating an              ask "What kind of person
                   experience for yourself          do I want to be?"
                   with the choices you make.
                                                        Do you want to look
                                                        back on all you've
                                                        read and feel it
                                                        doesn't add up to
                                                        anything?
Read that which you
never read.

Read that which you
have ceased to read.

Read something that you
think you're totally
familiar with.

Read it differently:

   Backwards:

      Chapters in reverse order.
      Paragraphs?  Sentences?

   Sideways:

      Look at the words down the
      first column of the page.

   Do web searches/encyclopedia
   look-ups on all proper names.



      Of late (Aug 10, 2004),
      I tend to read multiple
      books at once,
      alternating between
      works that complement
      or contrast each other
      in some way.

                  THE_ILIAD_AND_THE_PROTESTANT

          For example, I re-read
          Kerouac's "The Dharma Bums"
          with a few books of Snyder's
          poetry at hand, and a copy of
          the "Diamond That Cuts Through
          Illusion" by Nhat Hanh as a
          basic work on Buddhism.



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