Don's Oblique Strategies

Dedications to:

My beautiful wife, to whom I dedicate all good things.
Our dear friend and neighbor, who helped inspire this list.  Thank you, dear friend.

Don's Oblique Strategies are called such in order to distinguish them from the Eno/Schmidt originals, not as a self-referential pat on the back.  These strategies are culled in large part from ordinary experience, and may serve as an aid when faced with creative dilemmas.  A creative dilemma, as I define it, may arise during the so-called "ordinary course of life."  Such dilemmas are not limited to artists:  since every positive action is, again, by my definition, a creative one, these may prove useful to you.  For example, "What to clean first?" may help to break a creative block.   

As you'll note, the strategies are aphoristic in nature; however, they are not aphorisms. Alas, I am not willing to place myself in league with aphorists.  

The list of strategies is ongoing and plastic.  Readers, I welcome your observations as well:  feel free to contribute.  


Don's Oblique Strategies:  An Ongoing Concern:


1, Edit 3:  Steal with abandon, and pile up the loot with care. Upon discovery of your thievery, you will be lauded and derided, assuredly not in equal measure. 
OR
Steal with abandon, and pile up the loot with care. Upon discovery of your thievery, you will be lauded and derided, assuredly not in equal measure. 
The preceding is an Oblique Strategy, edit 3.
Provide a "steal" option
FB#:  1

2.  Put off one thing until later.
FB#:  2

3.  Pick a good idea at random, and then abandon it. If you choose a good night's sleep, pick again. It's the only instance in which you are allowed to do so (Abandoned Idea)
FB#:  3

4.  Create, steal, organize, combine.  Lists work well.
FB#:  4

5.  Create, steal, organize, combine. Lists work well. The addition of a short list culled from Eno/Schmidt's original Oblique Strategies list further enhances your lists.
Don's Oblique Strategies, #4, Addendum (FB#:)

6.  Everything we do is music. Please observe your cues to be silent. In that way, you, at once, participate in creation and behold its awe. 
Don's Oblique Strategies, #5, Co-Authored by John Cage (FB#:)

7.  Expression, Not Self-Correction
Don's Oblique Strategies, #6 (FB#:)

8.  Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. Do something else to it.  Then attempt to restore it to its original form.  
Don's Oblique Strategies, #7, with kind assistance from Jasper Johns
  
9.  Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it. Do something else to it. Then attempt to restore the object to its original form. 
Don's Oblique Strategies, #8, with kind assistance from Jasper Johns (Application 1)

10.  Take your ringer off the hook. Proceed.
Don's Oblique Strategies, Number Unknown.

11.  Fill a void:  Dig a hole.

12.  What to clean first?

13.  Unplug your phone.  Proceed.  
Cf:  DOS 10.

14.  Go to your room!