Back in your box

This is sort of interesting, sort of freaky. Maybe it's what I need to help me hit my deadlines, a tiny blank box designed by somebody I don't know - with nothing but my notes, my brain, blank space and the knowledge that the clock is ticking.

At the same time, I wonder how these people will manage not to go insane. Performance art is one thing, performance is another. I'd guess everybody who writes or creates has some personalized form of sensory deprivation. (My checklist for when I absolutely positively must get something done includes my iPod, on supershuffle, to cut down on outside noise; my baseball cap, to minimize the field of vision; and my shoes off, to let the muses that live in my feet out. Or something.) But the best part, what I consider the actual writing, is the part after that, when I leave my little cubby hole of an office for the nearest coffee shop or the park or the neighborhood public house (Love Portland. Love it!) to read my crappy first draft and rip it to shreds. Maybe it's because I'm not a novelist, but I sort of think the outside world plays an important role in the creative process.

Clearly I'm not artsy or hip enough to appreciate this exhibition. As our buddy John Reinan always says of daily journalism: Some days, we go to work and make art. And some days, we go to work in a sentence factory.