SIDE JOBS

Subconscious art from conferences, seminars, meetings, hearings, gatherings, and other over-the-table get-togethers.

It’s generally called doodling, and that’s what this stuff is I guess, almost all of it created while sitting at a table and listening to others talk. I find that I focus better on what is being said if I shut out all other stimuli and deal with two things: the words I am hearing in my head and the shapes coming into life on the paper in front of me.

I throw many minor doodles away but have saved these because each eventually surprised me with its subjective beauty and compact power. Most are drawn on logo bedecked note pads, awarded to participants by the organizers of political events. They have been drawn while listening to presidents, foreign ministers, generals, parliamentarians, and myriad think tankers. They evolve from the activity of listening. They are spontaneous, impulsive, irrational, unfettered, organic, and harmonic.

I have never set out to draw something. I simply let my hand start making marks and follow curiously to see where it will go. These are the results. Some took 15 minutes. Others took shape over an hour. Rarely longer. I never retouch them.

For context and reference I have begun to preserve notes that accompanied the doodles, including dates when available. After all, this was the work I was sidelighting on.

 

(Pictures to come.)

No 2008. gada 4. – 26. novembrim programma “Iespējamā misija” piedāvāja pasākumu sēriju Latvijas augstskolās, kur uz atklātu sarunu ar profesionāļiem tika aicināti piedalīties studenti un tie, kas nesen beiguši augstskolu. Tikšanās reizēs ar dažādu nozaru līderiem bija iespēja uzzināt par akualitātēm un karjeras iespējām savā jomā, kā arī uzzināt par programmu.

Grupa: Autobuss Debesīs
Albums: Domā par mani
Dziesma: Kā gan tu nezināji

Bruce the Log

In 1974 I got my first desk job after graduating from college. I had worked as a construction laborer since getting my Philosophy Degree but finally landed a job in the advertising department of a discount store chain in Chicago called Turn*Style. I started off as a production assistant for a catalog shoot (I had to register and organize all product samples that would be photographed for their catalog.) But I began to behave very cleverly in the office, convinced my superiors I could write, and eventually contrived to became a copywriter. Turn*Style was later joined by a home improvement chain called Republic Lumber, and it was my responsibility to develop a distinct copy voice for Republic in all their print advertising. Republic Lumber was my baby. Each week we would get a list of items that would be on sale the following week, and we had to lay them out, draw them up and write some words to make people come and buy the stuff. One week the feature sale item was birch logs. Republic had a big shipment and was loading the stores with them, so it was our job to unload them on unsuspecting customers and make some money. In thinking about this shipment of birch logs, I ended up writing this. It never appeared as a real ad, but did provide a modicum of in-house inspiration.

101 Things You Can Do With a Republic Fireplace Log

(Other Than Put it In The Fireplace)

1. Cut it into 20,000 toothpicks.
2. Use it as a doorstop.
3. Carve a masthead for a small sailboat.
4. Sit on it.
5. Hit a homerun.
6. Build a log cabin. (you may need more than one.)
7. Use it to keep your seat at the movies while you go out for popcorn.
8. Give it some friends on their 5th (wooden) wedding anniversary.
9. Use it as a fourth for bridge.
10. Carve wooden nickles from it.
11. Talk to it on those long, lonely nights.
12. Mash a lot of potatoes with it.
13. Stand on it to reach the top shelf in the closet.
14. Roll it up and down the street.
15. Feed it to a beaver.
16. Give a banquet for termites.
17. Build a fence.
18. Create a unique lamp.
19. Put it in your greenhouse for atmosphere.
20. Break open castle doors with it.
21. Throw it at your enemies.
22. Prop your loose windows open with it.
23. Have a log rolling contest.
24. Use it in a Log Cabin Syrup ad.
25. Use it for ballast in a hot air baloon.
26. Hide behind it.
27. Buy it  presents on Christmas
28. Paint a face on it and call it “Bruce”.
29. Stare at it.
30. Convince a bunch of ants it’s a giant redwood.
31. Drop it from the Sears Tower and see if it breaks.
32. Add it to your antique log collection.
33. Watch it petrify
34. Start a termite farm
35. Sell it for a proft.
36. Chop it into chips and put them on your shoulder.
37. Make a canoe  out of the bark.
38. Put it in the middle of your living room as a conversation piece.
39. Place it in the street by the curb to save a parking space.
40. Leave it as a tip at the Drake Oakbrook
41. Pass it out to friends when your wife has a baby (paint it pink or blue.)
42. Put a stamp on it and mail it.
43. Drop some silver icicles on it and call it a Christmas Tree
44. Use it to flatten dough.
45. Count the rings and try to guess how old it is.
46. Buy all you can and try to put the original tree together out of the pieces.
47. Have Andy Warhol sign it and sell it for $1,000
48. Write a poem to it.
49. Swat big flies with it.
50. Sell it to K-Mart as an exotic plant.

(That’s about as far as I got in one continuous flow of ideas and I concluded that that would be enough. So I distributed it to the staff of T*S and Republic Lumber (and Osco Drug). That Christmas, I received as a corporate gift, a birch log with the name Bruce written on the ends. Over 35 year have passed and I still have this log named Bruce. It has travelled from Oakbrook to Chicago to Washington, D.C. to Riga. In the last 8 years since building a home in the woods by the seaside of Northern Kurland I have sawed and chopped hundreds upon hundreds of birch logs and have done many of the above-mentioned things with birch logs, which only goes to show that sooner or later, I tend to follow my own advice.)

The American School of Apathy

presents

THE INSTITUTE OF INTERDISCIPLINARY INDIFFERENCE

As you know, the American School of Apathy is a unique educational institution dedicated to the proposition that knowledge is not only boring, but downright dangerous.

I mean, do you really want to know what’s going on in the world? Of course not! It’ll only get you confused, depressed and probably in a lot of expensive trouble.

Thus, when it comes to the truth, justice and the American Way, we’re about as indifferent as the next guy. And proud of it.

Nevertheless, in the pursuit of intellectual unconsciousness, we do have a responsibility to present all sides of an issue, regardless of inance. Inspid or ridiculous it may seem. How else are you going to know which issues toignor and which cause to belittle?

The Other Side of Equal Rights

I’m sure you’re well aware of the Moral Majority’s campaign to instill a little ‘old time religion’ into our institutes of higher learning. Well, we’re all for it. Our policy has always been to ignore both sides of every issue with equal indifference. We think it’s only fair to pursue ‘equal wrongs’ with the same lack of intensity shown toward ‘equal rights’. The present on-going debate over Creationism vs Evolution is a case in point.

For years, we have taught our students to disregard some of the most complex and ingenious scientific theories ever devisd by man. Our “Accelerated Ignorance” courses have enable young men and women to dismiss the combined thought of such thinkers as Einstein, Darwin, Newton and Freud without batting an eyelash.

And now our religious brethren are demanding equal time.

So who are we to argue? Do you think we care? Our student body is as disinterested in theology as it is in geology. They care as little about the sacred as they do the profane. They’re equally adept at forgetting the words to the Lord’s Prayer as they are the Pledge of Allegiance. When it comes to the pressing issues of today’s highly complex and extremely disturbing world, be they ethical, scientific, political or theological, our students can only respond with the famous French saying “viva l’indifference!”

Thus, I invite you to check out the programs being offered by our new Institute of Interdisciiplinary Indifference. Or, if you prefer, don’t. I really don’t care because I’m missing a hot bingo game right now and all this tedious letter writing is cramping my style.

Boleslav Marquardt (Bolly)

Part-time President

Of the American School of Apathy

P.S. If there’s a subject you would like to know less about, a course you’d like to skip or a program you’d like to overlook, please drop me a line. If I have nothing better to do I’ll take it up with our Board of Misdirectors as soon as they return from there endless leaves of absence.

Kas ir latvietis?
www.kaklutparlatvieti.lv