Crisp & Clean

I looked at my notes to see if they would have the desired impact. I had jotted the notes in my trusty three-ring notebook that sits to the right of my keyboard, just behind the mousepad. The notebook, in typical old school style, holds whatever needs to be addressed or explored as ideas turn to written words, images morph to lyrics and mathematical equations are shown. All this rests alongside notes to self, phone numbers, itemized lists, trivial questions and their corresponding answers, important dates, Italian to English translations, metaphorical comparisons and metaphysical possibilities. All this is captured by my bic #2 0.7 mm mechanical pencil. The pencil is my version of the Fujita Samurai Katana that sits in waiting on the credenza. They are both handy, sharp and prepared. 

All that is missing is me. These two potentially deadly tools are incomplete without my hand to grip them and intention to implement in whatever skirmish I deem appropriate. Should we declare war today? Should we invade another neighboring, peaceful, sovereign nation? Or should we write a letter to the state department reminding them that they were elected to uphold an oath?

Certainly there are other, more powerful tools at my disposal. The computer(s) coupled with my frustratingly slow wi-fi allow access to the awesome collection of civilizations knowledge. Not a day passes without my amazement at the speed with which questions, some simple, some richly detailed, can be answered. Yesterday, as example, with a few key strokes I was presented with a detailed explanation of the difference between radial and bias tires, this seconds after a three page synopsis on the job description of the duties required of a deputy assistance secretary of state for foreign affairs. Wow, if ever one might need some quick fact checking, this is the tool! After this ten minute exercise I didn’t know whether to shop or go blind. 

I have been using the three-ring notebook protocol for going-on forty years. I have them all safely sequestered in a various file cabinets ranging in geographical locations from five feet away to deep storage in the utility room. I refer to them, but mostly they act as semi-quick responses to specific fact. I suppose they also act as records, cheap historical chronicles of the bits and pieces of stimuli catching my attention as the many moons rose and a thousand suns have set. Very un Zen-like I have a strong emotional attachment to them. They act as my hard-copy body of work. They state with emphasis that I was here, a scribbled footprint to the proof of existence. The fact that my cursive is subject to interpretation leaves the same option to decipher individual meaning the way that Robert Hunter’s magical lyrical poetics imply various possibilities. Having spent a little time on the mountain and a little time on the hill, I have also seen some people run away and others that stand still. 

My notes from yesterday, indicative of the creative whirlwind currently circling, from an audio book listening of McCarthy’s masterful 'No Country for Old Men’ to the reading of Diablo Cody’s equally provocative shooting script of “Juno’, borrowed from each. Condensing their brilliance into a single didactic phrase, the razor sharp sword cutting-edge slice of inspiration, as captured by the mighty bic #2 0.7 mm simply reminded me (along with the pen being mightier than the sword) to:

Write crisp and write clean.