30 April 2008

galumphing and bricolage


I was just reading through Lesson 5 in my Writing Workshop Online Course. It's about exploring our creative abilities. These two words are new to me:

Galumphing -which is like being very playful, "the seemingly useless elaboration and ornamentation of activity. It is profligate, excessive, exaggerated, uneconomical. We galumph when we hop instead of walk, when we take the scenic route..." and "The requisite variety that opens up our expressive possibilities comes from practice, play, exercise, exploration, experiment." ~Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play

Bricolage - A French word that means to succeed using only what's at hand. Limits can create intensity. "The impeded stream is the one that sings." ~Wendell Berry. "The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit..." ~Igor Stravinsky. For example I have to write about an item (from a list) that says the least to me, like a paper clip or piece of gravel!

Next I have some exercises to practice using these new techniques.

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