The Third "Leg" of Our Retirement Plan

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 18 August 2014.

An old Poladroid Polaroid

We're working out the day or night that I can get everyone cleared out of the house for recording purposes. We definitely think it can be done, but we're just looking at the most advantageous, least disruptive opportunity. I worked over at my parents a few times while they were gone, but it's just inconvenient. It's much easier to do it in our house, but it really requires that my beloved progeny be gone. I will start loading those up to Dropbox as soon as I finish them.

I remain committed to the blog for various reasons (I can be potentially talked out of these). One is that I feel my creative process is aided by the dialectic of our email exchanges. My process has a tendency to become involuted and, even though we're not making much progress right now, it invigorates me and keeps me on an even keel with the project. I know you haven't been as keen on it at times, but if you can indulge me whenever possible, I'd appreciate it.

Or explain to me why it's foolish!

A second reason is the perhaps laughable idea that all this will be interesting to someone someday. I show The Truman Show every year to my seniors and I found it interesting that the production was held up for a number of years for some reason, during which time the screenwriter or director wrote backstories for all the characters. Some of the actors remarked how helpful all those backstories were as they tried to get inside the minds of their characters. I like to think that--unlike backstories, which never see the light of day artistically--our musings are actually part and parcel of the project. Whether or not that's true, it is a rich repository of our ideas, one that can definitely play a role in any future dramatic productions.

This leads me to my final topic, and I could use some input. I will almost certainly not be able to keep up my level of email exchanges during the school year, especially with the renewed focus on recording. I want to introduce a new type of post, which would essentially involve keeping a photo log of our labors. Let me give you my rationale and some ideas I have.

First, the photo log is something I think we should be doing anyway given the "self-mythologizing" theme that is so central to the project. We can't have all those photos be thrown together the last minute when we're putting the finishing touches on our large coffee table book (the "third leg" in our retirement plan). We will need thousands of pictures by then. At any rate, this is a discipline that we can no longer procrastinate. My thought is we should simply take lots of pictures of ourselves working on the songs.

I like Instagram's filters for creating instantly vintage-looking photos, including a high-contrast black and white. I haven't used it because I don't have a phone on which to download the app, but it might be a good option when I get one. I think flickr is pretty much just as good. But I like that we would do a little on-the-fly mythologizing by taking appropriate pictures and slapping a cool filter on them. Everyone knows it's just a filter...but we are so okay with that! Do you have any experience with these platforms? Preferences?

I'm also pretty sure all of these can be embedded and posted to other websites: Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, and possibly Pinterest.

link: Poladroid.net