All Always Absolutely Unique

Blake Butler, who awesomely interviewed me at Bookslut, wrote a fascinating meditation on influence over at htmlgiant.

Another week some months later L. told me to put three pennies in an unused corner of an empty room in the basement I was living in. Every day or so, when it occurred to me, he said, I should go into the room and move the pennies. Move them a little, one or all of them, or do not move them at all. Do what came to me. Then leave the room. At night I slept in the room adjacent to the pennies.

As I did this, throughout the day, I would find myself thinking about the pennies. Thinking about how small ways I might have moved them and how those other movements might have affected something else outside the room. Attention to the air as more distinct. I would also, in association, think about the smaller elements of my surroundings.

This pennies bit seems like a much better maneuver to heighten attentiveness than the other things I've heard of, like writing left-handed (like, if you're a righty) or reading upside down. I want something small and slow-witted to take over me, like myself.