Welcome!
THIS IS SO EXCITING.
I’m Amy, I’m a junior at Wesleyan University, and I’m here to try something — well, 1001 things. Last fall, in a class on the theory of musical notation, I read Cornelius Cardew’s 1974 booklet, Scratch Music. At the very end was a piece, or maybe just an appendix, called “1001 Activities.” I was immediately drawn to the 10-page spread, and made a plan to print it out, tape it to my wall, and, like, do it! It’s been a few months but I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
So today, it begins. Julie and Julia-style, I’m going to do all 1001 activities, soup to nuts — er, “draw a picture of a cat” to “‘ave a coop o’ tea” — in as little time as possible. I’m going to write a little bit about each activity, checking in once or twice a week, and see how creative I feel. Or maybe how exhausted. Or maybe how dumb I feel for committing myself to this big project and I publicized it so I can’t back out and if I do it’ll look bad but I shouldn’t shame myself for choosing what’s best for me and… I’ll save the rest for my therapist.
For those curious, I’m going to write a bit more about Cardew and his style of music — technically, I think this is some kind of performance art! Very cool, not intimidating…
Stick around, this should be fun. Catch ya in a few days.
-Amy
