Tiny Advice-Giving Art Video

Magic 9 Ball

Growing up, Magic 8 Balls were everywhere. They were basically a die tossed in a sphere of bluish liquid with a wee window. Instead of numbers, the die had simple answers: signs point to yes, my reply is no, it is certain. An answer to your query would rise with the die from the depths like the lady in the lake. I’ve always thought there ought to be a version with more advice choices, both reasonable and poetically surprising. Many urgent questions have obvious answers, or don’t matter much, so there’s really no harm.

Should I go to the party? It likely doesn’t matter. It could matter, but likely not. Okay, I’ll go. Should I wear my newest shirt instead of my favorite shirt? It might feel important, but it doesn’t matter at all. You could take advice from a duck on that one and be just fine. One quack for yes.

The advice or predictions here were invented largely by sound. Something about the combinations moved me; I don’t pretend to know why.

Before smart phones we literally stared at a die inside a sphere, we’d shake it and look again, shake it and look again. Oh what a time we had. Surely we had more time for our own thinking. Today if you’d rather not hear your usual inner chatter, you just listen to a podcast or a book. That is convenient and merciful, especially for those of us a bit menaced by our minds, but it also blocks ideas. Too, while some of us could overthink our relationships in any amount of time, for those less emotionally focussed, boredom used to almost force a little introspection.

Last century, when we went to the laundromat we often tired of our newspaper and then just sat watching the clothes go around. Now I’m the first to nod along to the idea of a meditative tumble, but I’m talking regular laundry machine watching. Like, it competed with Friends. Seen from space we’d have looked like morons.

I don’t want to look like a maroon from space, I’d rather they saw me as I am today, thumb always in play, scrolling like my ancestors did before me, though you couldn’t take a holy book into the laundry area for obvious reasons. Since I am womankind and undeniably so, (no toga was yet born that could quite hide my form) my ancestors were, let’s face it, at the suds, washboards, and tubs. I’d have gone down as one of history’s soapy sistery. Still I’m from the people of the scroll and scroll I do. It is certain.

I can attest that the Magic 8 Ball didn’t hold one’s attention so tightly as to block the formation of new ideas. Laundry going around and around may hypnotize but even so isn’t so distracting as to inhibit one’s processing of emotions.

So I made this little art video, though I didn’t at all set out to. I made the collage first, and a year later played around with animating it, and did another revision the next year. I was still first learning the art app I use, Procreate; this got animated anyway, and I’ve always liked how it turned out.

As the image here scrolls through it’s many suggestions it’s worth noticing that these messages are able to be true at the same time as others, they can overlap and intertwine. One doesn’t need to pick a message for oneself, but can instead just watch them roll by and see all the flinty fates that free will has on offer. It gives an oddly freeing feeling.

I’ve never written them out, having made them up instead as I went, and they go by fast, so writing them out here, below, I’m able to see them all for the first time. It is a pretty encouraging list. I’ve got a lot more ways to say yes than no, I encourage civil disobedience, patience, social interdependence, and a lot of calls to pay attention in all sorts of ways. So I leave you with the poem of it, and as always with my great affection.

Yes, no, maybe so, read, write, get out of sight, deep breath, try theft.

Yes, no, have a go, think, don’t blink, raise a stink, bribe, vibe, look, listen, ask again, true, blue, they need you, more, less, best, it’s fine, get in line.

Yes, no, it’s your day, walk away, here to stay, it’s okay.

***

Thanks for coming and spending time with me - I love that you are here. Please do sign up for the free subscription if you haven’t, and of course the paid subscription, if you can. Thanks so much to those of you who already have—it means the world to me.

If maker ye be, make some things so that future you has something to revise and add to. That’s the only fortune worth telling, the one where you create the world with your attention, the one where you give gifts to your future self, predicting that she’ll know what to do when she gets them. Enjoy the cool breezes when they come, be easy with yourself, and I shall return to encourage you again. One quack for yes -

love,

Jennifer