The Weekly Atticus (03/03/2018)

Without Our Art, We Starve | The Weekly Atticus

A recap of the week at Atticus Review, along with some extras.

Dear ,

In his book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity, David Lynch writes, “Desire for an idea is like bait. When you’re fishing, you have to have patience. You bait your hook, and then you wait. The desire is the bait that pulls those fish in—those ideas. The beautiful thing is that when you catch one fish that you love, even if it’s a little fish—a fragment of an idea—that fish will draw in other fish, and they’ll hook onto it. Then you’re on your way.”By desire, Lynch doesn’t mean a flimsy rubber-band wish launched at the sight of a shooting star. He doesn’t mean a hope uttered without any intention of working toward realization. The desire he writes of is something much sturdier, a desire that prompts action, a desire that is manifested through preparation and persistence. Fishing is a perfect metaphor for creativity in so many ways, not the least of which because fishing is typically a quiet and contemplative activity. Talk too much, and you’ll scare away the fish. Scroll through social media sites on your phone, and you might not notice a slight tug at your line; or worse, you might forget about the fishing pole altogether and relax your grip, and the pole might be yanked right out of your hands. In other words, successful fishing requires being observant, present, and patient. This is the kind of preparation that manifests desire in creative endeavors too.When the hook is baited, ideas can be caught anywhere—while out on a run; while dropping your kid off at school; during a boring work meeting; while sitting in the dentist’s chair, assuming you’re not too stressed in this particular situation to receive ideas.Any observation of any thing can yield an idea. Nothing fancy required. It’s the presence of mind that is paramount, the awareness. However, certainly there are activities that can help keep the waters well stocked: reading books, visiting museums, trying new activities, visiting new places, listening attentively, looking closely at something you’ve never bothered to notice before.   When I’ve done the work to keep the water stocked and my hook baited, not only do I catch a heck of a lot of ideas just as Lynch describes—ideas hooking onto each other seemingly ad infinitum—I also feel so much more alive than I do on the days when I don’t even have a pole in the water, much less bait on the hook. Un-baited-hook days are days without desire. Calling such days rough is an understatement. They happen because I’m either too tired or too stressed or both to work very hard to be present. I lapse into default mode. Those days call to mind David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech, “This is Water,” in which he extols awareness as freedom and salvation from the drudgeries of life. Wallace writes, “It is about simple awareness—awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: ‘This is water, this is water.’” Awareness is essential to creating art, and it is essential, I think, to living a meaningful, fulfilling life. I don’t think it follows that creating art is essential to living a meaningful life, for awareness can be applied in plenty of other ways, but certainly I think it’s safe to say that this is why those of us who do create art cannot live without creating. Without our art, we starve. Thanks for reading. We’re glad you’re here.

Michelle RossFiction Editor

ATTICUS NEWS

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THIS WEEK AT ATTICUS

FERAL TOWN by Adam Gustavson

BOOK REVIEW: OLDMAN, TAKE A LOOK AT MY LIFEA Review of GARY OLDMAN IS A BUILDING YOU MUST WALK THROUGH by Forrest RothReview by Jeff Gilliland"A dense, stream-of-consciousness monologue brimming with satirical self-awareness, Gary Oldman takes the reader on a circuitous journey through psychosis and celebrity obsession, like Virgil leading Dante through the Inferno—if Virgil had never actually been there before."READ ON

FICTION: FELLOWSHIPby Kelly Wisdom"I fear his dark eye will turn on me, drag me into the light."READ ON

POETRY: THE WOODPECKER OF SATURNALIA by John-Michael Bloomquist"The woodpeckerwith diamond black featherspecks a hole below your shoulder,the delicate but thicktissue opened like an opal"READ ON

POETRY: WHAT MARIE DIDN’T HEARby Sandra Kolankiewicz"and you become angry, more bored still than the ghostsin this city that have forgotten cotton and clean water."READ ON

CNF: FALL ON MEby Dina RellesThe latest in our ongoing Superunknown: Stories About Songs series"My siblings and I would invite friends over and we’d climb out my tiny bedroom window, one by one. We’d line up along the rough shingles and wait. I’d stare so long, stars would form that weren’t actually there."READ ON

FILM REVIEW: MAKING IT NEW: THE SUCCESSES OF ANNIHILATIONA review of ANNIHILATION from director Alex GarlandReview by Alison Lanier"...a confident and inventive adaptation that brings something new even to the book’s biggest fans."READ ON

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