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February 23, 2021

Teaching after midnight.

Hello lovely people.

I hope you've all had marvelous Mondays.

I'm keeping tonight's missive short--a parable, and a gift.

In the large to wee dark hours of February 13th, I taught a workshop at the AEROx Alternative Education Resource Organization online conference. If you wanna see my gorgeous face on the website like a real heckin' public speaker, you can click right here: https://www.aeroconference.org/workshops.

It was about writing, and about coping with uncertainty, and so many other things. It was also a grand experiment.

There was a call for presenters, and two slots left. One hecka late--12:30 am - 1:30 am, and one hecka early--4:30 am I believe.

I was originally like--hell nope. But then the slot stayed open. And I was like--I wonder what it would be like to teach after midnight. I love nights, I knew it would be an international crowd, and I figured I'd get people in different timezones. And it's not often I get to poach a non-U.S. centric audience for my antics. So I bit.

And it was ever so tasty.

I scrawled out some presentation notes on what I wanted, in general, to cover, went to sleep (uncharacteristically) around 9, woke up to an alarm 15 minutes before my presentation, hastily made a google form to try an audience participation ploy that worked chef's kiss better than my wildest dreams, (probably because it came out of them) and then winged it.

Free-associated a bunch of quotes and concepts together into a pajama-clad collegial thought stew that's as on brand as anything I think I've ever created. I was really proud. I also haven't watched the whole thing all the way through yet.

Nor have I edited the footage. So ya'll are getting the rough cut here. But if you feel like experiencing it, I remember it being full of some collaborative nuggets of gold.

Topic: Gateless Writing - Write Without Fear! Start Time : Feb 13, 2021 12:25 AM

Meeting Recording: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/6hwqixWN11MJbpKmfW8lpDci1NIoYIs0D5xOACyp_nEcBL26r-Xy1R9TU2q2onj8.Y4ndjdIP_9TzkQMQ

Audience participation question, reply if you want: What's something in your life that you could do in some weird new way, in front of cool new people? AND/OR: What's a recent unexpectedly awesome win you've experienced?

With care and mischief,

Yours in befuddlement and awe,

With three signoffs because I love sign offs, and believe they are an untapped goldmine for communicative creativity,

Alex

P.S. Watch this dude play an entire gig on a outmoded toy piano and talk about the effects of limitation on creativity if you want a related educational something with higher production value. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0c4UBWFW-w Flippin' love Adam Neely. If anyone happens to know this guy, please help me befriend him.

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