I first want to thank all my friends for their amazing generosity and encouragement. Although I cannot always communicate or internalize it, I continue to be overwhelmed by their support, and I am hoping to use this space as part of regimen to promote healthier habits and thoughts in myself as well as share some fun along the way.

The first project I will tackle is an idea I had about six months ago, The OuLiPo’clock. The OuLiPo ‘‘group’’ was founded in the 1960s by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. With a membership that consists of many mathematicians who “dabble” in writing as well, the movement adheres to a mantra that supposes that constraints in writing actually unlock the potential for infinite possibilities.

I highly recommend checking out some of the work by Queneau, Calvino, Perec and many other members of the group. As part of this tradition, I want to make a clock that at every hour checks a prominent news source or other frequently updated text bank, then after synthesizing a day’s worth of material, uses a text-generating AI to create a short story. Every day, this will occur at the same time, what I want to call OuLiPo’clock, and automatically upload the story (along with input for those interested) to this blog. Finally, I would like to also train a model that uses this generated story and creates an image to capture it’s essence. The photo will also be uploaded to the blog.

I plan to create a physical clock with a display board for the story and image that updates with each day’s new iteration to hang in my hallway. I have bought some of the materials necessary to do this, and I plan to also blog/fictionalize an account of my making of this machine as well in the manner of Paul Scheerbart.

Once the clock is complete, I want to then at a weekly or bi-weekly cadence, choose an output that most speaks to me and use that to seed an original piece of fiction of my own. I will then be honoring the OuLiPo tradition not only in the original genesis of the stories but using that output to constrain (and unlock) my own voice.

Beyond this project, I hope to use this site for many things. I want to of course start writing more, and I really hope that writing can be an outlet to help deal with and let go of many of my own insecurities and issues; I promise to always try to lend some fun and fictional lens to this exercise though. Additionally, I plan to upload some backlog of my previous writing and artistic creations to help populate the space as I get going.

Finally, I think this would be an awesome space for me to help keep track of what I have/am currently reading and watching and give recommendations at a more public level. I plan to create a way for people to send in requests for more personalized recommendations based on taste as well and for people to send in requests to read or watch something in particular with me, because I’m always open to try new things and love to have some with which to discuss the piece.