I'm taking Cynthia Haynes up on her suggestion in the footnotes of "Writing Offshore". But before assigning this origami-composition lesson to my students, I wanted to have some fun with it myself.
So with some 80's Glam Sharpies, I inscribed "We are all boat people" on the starboard side of my very own paper boat. And so it was christened.
In my trip to campus over the weekend to get some work done, I had my boat in tow. I left her carefully in one of the conference rooms in Heavilon, on one of the tables.
It is at these coordinates in our endeavor that Haynes gives us the most important command:
Then imagine [the boat's] trajectory, where it will go, who will see it, what they will think (what you would like them to think). And then, put that in writing; trace the trajectories, and give it ballast? So that the main questions you should ask yourself is this: WILL IT FLOAT? (718)
I can see another grad student coming in to his or her conference. Sitting down, this TA wonders what that piece of paper is on the table. Thinking of it as part of the flotsam that skirts classrooms and hallways - forgotten pencils, water bottles, paper, jackets, etc. - they may ignore it, or pick it up and set it aside somewhere it might collect dust. Or even in the recycling.
If not now, wouldn't it happen with the janitor?
Would the TA look at the writing? Would one of our freshmen?
The first trajectory is real-ish. We can look at yet another real-ish one. Suppose the TA does pick it up - my boat does after all have 80's Glam coloring on it. The boat halted this TA in her trajectory - whatever stream of thoughts she may have had, whatever plans she may have been conjuring, pause for a clear moment. Her focus narrows in on the boat, placed squarely in the center of the table demanding to be seen. "We are all boat people..." flashes across the screen of her mind, demanding response. Understanding. It may cause confusion. Interest. Brief feelings of bemusement.
And it makes her think of what it could all mean. Why is this boat, so clearly folded from paper and made lovingly, sitting here? What does "We are all boat people..." mean?
The TA may go as far as making it a statement of our existential nature. It means journey. Community. Universality. All symbolized in a boat.
It happens within moments. I don't know if the boat has set her on a new heading and if it can really change the matrix of Modernity and Individuality. Can it transcend time in her memories? Will she think on it later?
And what would students think? Their minds loaded with the latest Snapchats and Facebook posts and homework and friends and teachers and Twitter...Waiting patiently for their TA. What would a student think?
Am I stereotyping my audience?
Will it float?
***
I'm afraid this exercise only poses more questions than it can answer. Just as one movement of the moon makes millions of waves on the ocean's surface, so does the one statement, imprinted simply on the starboard side of my origami boat, give rise to wave after wave of queries and ideas. They are connected, but distinct. They carry movement from one domain of ideas into another. Imagination and scholarly pursuit combine in radical ways. In fact, they are hardly distinguishable. Writing offshore is to write without the impetus of knowing. Without the prerogative of determining one's fate in a sea of ideas. It is both freedom and enslavement - I am left to the caprice of any new "wave" if I am not anchored, yet my ideas can move in any heading I choose.
Writing offshore is the "doing" of scholarship, in some ways. I can only know if we will float if I actually depart. If I make my paper boat and leave argument to barnacles and sand. I can't conceptualize if we will float or not. This experiment was not enough - to really know, I would have to be present with the boat at all moments, be there to examine it in every instance and adjust my strategies to the infinite number of events that could happen to it. Even then, I can only write in retrospect.
To be offshore from rhetoric as it is now is truly departing all forms of scholarliness, perhaps. I need to abandon the slow movement of ideas which accrue through writing over time. Revising. Redrafting. It needs to be in the moment, so that new strategies and hard decisions form anew. Just as any captain works under constantly shifting circumstances, so would writing need to adjust to each new exigence on the spot, immediately.
It would take the courage of a captain, in short, to truly write offshore.
I don't feel sunken. Or defeated. Perhaps we floated after all.
So with some 80's Glam Sharpies, I inscribed "We are all boat people" on the starboard side of my very own paper boat. And so it was christened.
In my trip to campus over the weekend to get some work done, I had my boat in tow. I left her carefully in one of the conference rooms in Heavilon, on one of the tables.
It is at these coordinates in our endeavor that Haynes gives us the most important command:
Then imagine [the boat's] trajectory, where it will go, who will see it, what they will think (what you would like them to think). And then, put that in writing; trace the trajectories, and give it ballast? So that the main questions you should ask yourself is this: WILL IT FLOAT? (718)
I can see another grad student coming in to his or her conference. Sitting down, this TA wonders what that piece of paper is on the table. Thinking of it as part of the flotsam that skirts classrooms and hallways - forgotten pencils, water bottles, paper, jackets, etc. - they may ignore it, or pick it up and set it aside somewhere it might collect dust. Or even in the recycling.
If not now, wouldn't it happen with the janitor?
Would the TA look at the writing? Would one of our freshmen?
The first trajectory is real-ish. We can look at yet another real-ish one. Suppose the TA does pick it up - my boat does after all have 80's Glam coloring on it. The boat halted this TA in her trajectory - whatever stream of thoughts she may have had, whatever plans she may have been conjuring, pause for a clear moment. Her focus narrows in on the boat, placed squarely in the center of the table demanding to be seen. "We are all boat people..." flashes across the screen of her mind, demanding response. Understanding. It may cause confusion. Interest. Brief feelings of bemusement.
And it makes her think of what it could all mean. Why is this boat, so clearly folded from paper and made lovingly, sitting here? What does "We are all boat people..." mean?
The TA may go as far as making it a statement of our existential nature. It means journey. Community. Universality. All symbolized in a boat.
It happens within moments. I don't know if the boat has set her on a new heading and if it can really change the matrix of Modernity and Individuality. Can it transcend time in her memories? Will she think on it later?
And what would students think? Their minds loaded with the latest Snapchats and Facebook posts and homework and friends and teachers and Twitter...Waiting patiently for their TA. What would a student think?
Am I stereotyping my audience?
Will it float?
***
I'm afraid this exercise only poses more questions than it can answer. Just as one movement of the moon makes millions of waves on the ocean's surface, so does the one statement, imprinted simply on the starboard side of my origami boat, give rise to wave after wave of queries and ideas. They are connected, but distinct. They carry movement from one domain of ideas into another. Imagination and scholarly pursuit combine in radical ways. In fact, they are hardly distinguishable. Writing offshore is to write without the impetus of knowing. Without the prerogative of determining one's fate in a sea of ideas. It is both freedom and enslavement - I am left to the caprice of any new "wave" if I am not anchored, yet my ideas can move in any heading I choose.
Writing offshore is the "doing" of scholarship, in some ways. I can only know if we will float if I actually depart. If I make my paper boat and leave argument to barnacles and sand. I can't conceptualize if we will float or not. This experiment was not enough - to really know, I would have to be present with the boat at all moments, be there to examine it in every instance and adjust my strategies to the infinite number of events that could happen to it. Even then, I can only write in retrospect.
To be offshore from rhetoric as it is now is truly departing all forms of scholarliness, perhaps. I need to abandon the slow movement of ideas which accrue through writing over time. Revising. Redrafting. It needs to be in the moment, so that new strategies and hard decisions form anew. Just as any captain works under constantly shifting circumstances, so would writing need to adjust to each new exigence on the spot, immediately.
It would take the courage of a captain, in short, to truly write offshore.
I don't feel sunken. Or defeated. Perhaps we floated after all.
very cool, all this question-laden exploratory wordplay. i like.
ReplyDelete