Adam Blatner
Words and Images from the Mind of Adam Blatner
Table of Contents:
Foolin Around
Imperfect Creativity
Okay, these are estimates I’ve just made up out of the blue, but the point is to wonder about how the creative process operates in the world. So, consider that creativity generates 2,409 new breakthroughs or generative ideas per minute (or second?) on this planet: 48% on re-thinking are either absurd or face overwhelming obstacles. […]
Improvisation
Paul Jackson in the UK writes: Leaders know that an improvisational mindset helps fuel the practices of many of the most successful companies, especially in Silicon Valley. Leaders frequently reference their impro training, and they bring improviser in to help with management development, team-work and strategy. I’ve been hired by Google, for example, to set […]
Improvisation & Confabulation—an Art Form?
Whether consciously or unconsciously, we are improvising, making it up as we go along. We pretend that we are following rules, sticking to what’s expected, playing out the lessons we learn, and to some degree we are. However, in greater and lesser ways we are adding our own creative twists, nuances, stylistic elaborations, exaggerations, accentuations, […]
Inspiration (?)
I have been inspired, but what and from/by what I do not know. The following text came through my hand: Then, as if that were not enough, a “P.S.”: From what I can gather (?), or perhaps deduce (because certainly I cannot read these ? words or hieroglyphs, the clue is the choo-choo train engine […]
Insti-toot 4 Certificate-ology
International Institute of Certificatology is announcing its grand opening! You can create, grant, authorize, bestow, honor, recognize, authenticate, issue diplomas and (of course) certify as well as the best of ‘em! Deans, Boards of Examiners, Dipploma Mills, so-called “recognized” universities, and other establishment types and their pseudo-minions have no authority , other than what the […]
Inter-Dimensional ? Humor
Joke Zordak tried to tell me: Two whatchymacallits are talking with a third whatchymabigger… and one says… well, it loses so much in translation.. Okay, okay, I’ll try… one says, which way would infinity go if the possibilites were opened another dimension? And the big-guy says, ho ho, which dimension do you mean, the other […]
Inter-Dimensional Directions
If you remember, Zordak is my little flying-saucer lil’ green man archetypal character who figuratively lands in my back yard for a visit. (Dante had the ancient Roman poet, Virgil, as his guide to Inferno. I have Zordak.) Why the lot behind my home? I don’t know. Maybe he also empties what passes for his […]
Journal of (Very) Speculative Philosophy, No. 2
(The Officially Certified Publication of The Inter-Galactic Institute of Confabulology) Editor and Primary Author: Adam Blatner, Confabulologist Extraordinaire Issue #2 January 6, 2011, but drawing on sources from 2007 and hither and yon. Chapters in this issue include: What it’s All About: The Hokey Pokey Theory; Resonant Energy Fields ; and Soul-Concrescence What It’s All About: The Hokey […]
Junior Assistant
In some realms I’m big and important but in other realms I’m not, and on one of the cosmic levels I am very proud to report that I have been informed that I have been promoted to the rank of Junior Assistant! Yay! That means I get to help. My duties as yet are unclear. […]
Krazy Kat Redux
This summer Patrick McDonnell’s comic strip did a take-off on George Herriman’s comic strip, Krazy Kat, for those who might not have gotten the classical allusion. There are so many of these. I pride myself on recognizing many that may have been relevant to the educated class in my era, but then I realize that […]
Leprechaun Power
Here’s a little thought for St. Patrick’s Day: Please take it as seriously or as playfully as you like. At this point in history, most reputable people don’t yet believe in elves. (And by elves I mean anthropomorphic representations of semi-cosmic resonant energy fields.) It’s interesting, because belief in cosmic resonant energy fields such as […]
Letter-Forms as Art
By no means am I the only one who plays with the root forms of alphabets and the like as potential forms of art. I’ve been seriously interested in what I call “scriptology,” and also playfully interested, insofar as the making of writing is an art form in several cultures. It has become more so […]
Life Enlargement
Life of course is already huge beyond our comprehension, and adding depth is just mind-stretching. However, that is what I am bound to do: articulate in words what I’ve come to know: It is my karma—I think. Also, I enjoy it! Several years ago I did a cartoon playing off of the Peanuts’ cartoon strip, […]
Life Exploration
This is also a form of life expansion, and it’s not medical model. It’s a coaching model. Many—perhaps most—people who are referred aren’t really wanting to take on the world in new ways. They just say to themselves, “Don’t try this or you’ll seem foolish.” But life expansion is a form of non-problem-centered work with […]
Life is Very Multi-Complex
There are so many things to do, so many roles to play: Going to the toilet has many sub-roles, depending on whether you’re a man or a woman, depending on whether you’re constipated or have diarrhea, on the quality of the plumbing and the warmth of the toilet, on whether the toilet is in the […]
Lolling About
What a great activity: Lolling about, sort of going La la la la, like a silly. This is a perfectly plausible form of leisure, but there’s an art to it, maybe. I mean, what’s good lolling and what’s better, or even great lolling? These are frontiers to be investigated, but I fear they might not […]
Lollygagging
What a wonderful word. To amble and even ramble in a lackadaisical way. As in “Don’t lollygag, now.” But indeed, my age, the 70s, is a luxurious time to lollygag. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle were a popular singing duo in the later 60s and early 70s, and in 1967 they recorded a song titled […]
Lubricating “Grace”
Now there’s been some talk about how I doodle and make things up. I admit to this, but the process is more subtle and complex than it seems. To dismiss it as “just imagination” is as shallow as dismissing, well, imagination, as “just” imagination. What’s this “just” stuff? As if we are entitled to make […]
Mairzy Doats
This was the name of a novelty song put out in the mid 1940s: Mairzy dotes and dozey dotes, and liddle lamzey divey; A kiddle edivey two, wooden shoe! (Repeat) If the words sound queer, and funny to your ear, A little bit jumbled and jivey. Sing mares eat oats, and does eat […]
Making Stuff Up
I’m afraid I’m profligate—er, no… promiscuous? wrong word. Un, precocious, preternatural, portly? No. I do expressive myself a lot, though, through many channels. Check out my website and especially the section on confabulations. The latest one is relevant to current events, I think. To confabulate is to make stuff up. One then may or may […]
Mandala Cooker
My mandalas are by no means perfectly symmetrical and might better be called differentiated mandalaforms or something like that. They give the impression of symmetry but a little inspection reveals disorder amidst the apparent order. This is because that’s the way it really is in the cosmos: There are “layers” of disorder interspersed with “layers” […]
Mandalas
For the last several years I’ve become especially intrigued with the art form of mandala-making, and especially my own form, which often involves making variations of nine circles in a circle. (See a recent example). This has no intrinsic meaning other than it appeals to me intuitively, but were I to try to put into […]
Martian-Mayan Joke
Zordak sent this along to me—a “Martian-Mayan” joke. This has little to do with the present-day Mayan people who live in Central America, although the art of the ancient Mayan civilization was probably influenced by some visitor or tutelary spirits who inspired key artists early on. Technically, this isn’t about Martians, either, but that’s become […]
Meadow Masters
Well, this is in the fooling-around sub-section, but it’s also myth-making, or giving a poetic spin on nature. We have two big ol’ trees who thrust their limbs in a gesture of “you go, kid” over the meadow. Those who project evil in the world will see these as going “boo” like Halloween monsters putting […]
Mean Play versus Nice Play
A recent item has been circulating as a piece of internet humor, in which a bored husband plays a whole bunch of practical jokes in a store that’s part of a major retail chain. On one hand, I enjoyed it and laughed… but on the other hand, what is described is is an example of […]