02 February 2006

Groundhog Daze 06


I did it again! Another Groundhog Day. Another page written. Below is my Foreword from this o so slow writing project.

This story began long before it started throwing a few often strange threads my way a few years back.

The first page piece was written on 2 February 1990 (and it was deliberately designed to look a page pulled from a mass market paperback novel) for submission to, and publication in, an Art Postale! “B-Art Issue” of a mail art publication project edited and published by Vittore Baroni in Italy. It was my attempt at a piece from a disturbed story.

Once a year—when I wakeup on Groundhog Day—I write one more page without looking at the previous pages. I pick up the thread, tie a knot to a new scrap that lengthens the line. If needed, I edit to disjunctively continue broken sentences at the start of the current year’s page piece.

If my life ever gets that far, this will be a crazy quilt book or one colourful ball of yarn scraps. Possibly something to repair an afgan throw or a clown suit . . .

—Joe Blades
2 February 2001
T-shirt: Newfoundland & Labrador: A World of Difference
loc: Writing Room
temp: -5 C
sound: Ornette Coleman, In All Languages

2 comments:

Liz said...

how did i not know this about you?

Joe Blades said...

Not know what? My being a writer? My annual Groundhog Daze writing exercise?

There's plenty of writing and art projects I do that have never surfaced . . .