Ephemera Newsletter Iss Dec.2

(Creativity and Motivation Weekly)

Welcome to the Ephemera Newsletter, mituran! (Sinhala for “friends”).

Dear Readers,

Some Housekeeping Notes:

• This letter may get cut off by email providers. Please make sure to click through for the full experience.

• This week’s letter is for Paid Subscribers w/ a free preview.

• If you are a free subscriber, we’d love it if you considered joining us. Please read our post on going paid here.

• This issue is themed: Minimalism

  • min·​i·​mal·​ism ˈmi-nə-mə-ˌli-zəm 

    1: a style or technique (as in music, literature, or design) that is characterized by extreme spareness and simplicity

• We will be taking one week off this month on the 29th and resume in 2023!

Merci. Danke. Kiitos. 고마워 Go-ma-wo, Xiè xiè.

---

Holiday Creative Sponsor: Freewrite

Minimalism in design. We’re fans of entrepreneurs in the literary space, particularly if they make intriguing, useful, and aesthetically pleasing products. We bid you take a look at their cool retro-modern typewriters. The Freewrite might get you thinking about your practice differently. We find that using different mediums for writing, whether taking notes on a pad or using an analog writing machine, can engender new avenues of thought. Please have a look and support Ephemera in so doing. Enjoy!

---

Ephemera

As this hemisphere declutters — picture no leaves on trees, animals in hibernation and birds flown south, highly ordered pine needles — we consider minimalism: the art of brevity and smallness in writing. Flowery language can be very fun (we’re guilty of indulging), but we want to forefront how understanding minimalist constructions can aid our craft, whether poetry or prose. Think of the order and quiet on a fully snowed-out day. Is your mind clear? Do you have different types of thoughts? This is what we can effect on the page. A pristine space of simplicity such that very small things can become impactful; a lovely line from Saunders’ story “Tenth of December” comes to mind in conjunction with the snow-enabled order: “A cardinal zinged across the day.” A line such as that burns like a hot iron with import set against the icy, snow-covered setting in the story, set within, too, the easy, non-cluttered rhythm of Saunders’s prose. Try as we might, we’re no masters at being pithy and zingy. Try, however, we must. Let’s learn the concept and deploy as needed.

Include Ephemera in your practice, technical, creative or professional. We’re writing with you in mind: 3 zines, 3 opportunities, 3 jobs. This week, we look at musical genius and producer Brian Eno, and fun-fun book artist (he literally uses or paints on books) Mike Stilkey. Our article aside this week is a reminder about minimalism. Create depth with tiny building blocks. Imbue meaning with order and simplicity. Let your words layer, let them be accessible and brief. Oh what mountains of intricacy grow from small, simple inputs!

Let there be air in our sentences, in our lines; yet pack them full with weighty words, hearty images. Maybe keep them short. Or, if they’re long, let them live simply, easy to the end. Meaning can be erected bit by bit. Clout and emphasis by the by. Yield to the reader, in a way, by permitting participation. Their minds contribute on top of your edifice. Ambient music, minimalist art, get by by being what they are. A type of experience, a gateway (remember those gates in Central park? remember walking beneath the gates of a small town in Europe? remember a fantastic entry point into your favorite museum?). Open the minds eye and provide something succinct and let that narrowed passageway be open at the end. We can be the purveyors of gateways to new thought and feeling by virtue of the gate, not of the space beyond it. Minimize to expand. Gain command through precision. Become via simplicity. Control. Celerity. Clarity. Incision. We are awed by the skill set of frugality.

“Complexity and intelligence grow from simplicity, not from greater complexity.”
―Brian Eno

Your subscription is our ambiance. Buying us tea is a glorious minimal contribution!

Kṛtagnatāva!
(Gratitude)

---

~We’re so happy you’re here!~

---

---

Featured Music: Brian Eno

The famed producer, ambient experimentalist, and all round musical guru, Brian Eno, is exceedingly well known by name yet what he does or has done can be elusive…