How to be weird : an off-kilter guide to a singular life

How to be weird An off-kilter guide to a singular life

Eric Wilson, 1967-

Book - 2022

"A guidebook for cultivating the surprising joys that come from living an off-kilter life We crave the weird-the quirky, the eccentric, the peculiar, the freaky, the far-out-because it takes us out of our normal habits of thought and perception, nullifies our old conceptual maps with which we navigate our lives, and propels us into uncharted regions. Or to put it more simply: weirdness is essential to an interesting life. In How to Be Weird, Eric G. Wilson offers 99 fun and philosophically rich exercises for embracing all the weird in the world around us--taking aimless walks, creating a reverie nook, exploring the underside of bridges, making tombstone rubbings, finding your own Narnia, and more. With brief digestible entries on how t...o make sense of the random, guidelines on how to defamiliarize familiar objects through meditation, and exercises for locating weird states and phenomena for ourselves, How to Be Weird is an invitation to lean into the weird and to live a fuller life"--

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Subjects
Personality and creative ability.
Eccentrics and eccentricities.
Self-actualization (Psychology)
Published
New York : Penguin Books [2022]
Language
English
Main Author
Eric Wilson, 1967- (author)
Physical Description
xx, 214 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9780143136576
  • Introduction
  • 1. Create an Overview Effect
  • 2. Encourage Moments of Yugen
  • 3. Astonish Your Words
  • 4. Turn This Book into a Shovel
  • 5. Go Sinister
  • 6. Assemble a Shadow Box
  • 7. Arrange a Wunderkammer
  • 8. Design a Mappa Mundi
  • 9. Forge a New Identity
  • 10. Pursue Astral Pareidolia
  • 11. Construct a Curvilinear Terrarium
  • 12. Contrive a Shrine for Colors
  • 13. Quest for Your Daemon
  • 14. Quiver a Witch Stick
  • 15. Drink Air
  • 16. Novelize a Thrift Store
  • 17. Transform Trash into Art
  • 18. Haunt Your Haunts
  • 19. Rearrange Your Childhood Bedroom
  • 20. Celebrate the Uninteresting Stuff
  • 21. Get a Zero
  • 22. Alienate Yourself from Yourself
  • 23. Memorize a Poem Peripatetically
  • 24. Comb Plato's Beard
  • 25. Irritate a Narcissist
  • 26. Listen to the Glass Wizard
  • 27. Snort a Quarto
  • 28. Fabricate a Story That Has Never Existed Before
  • 29. Review Books That Do Not Exist
  • 30. Imagine Your Life as a Peculiar Novel Written by a Lazy God
  • 31. Crank Some Microfilm
  • 32. Welcome the Earworm
  • 33. Conceive a Curse Word
  • 34. Hatch an Aphorism
  • 35. Conjure Your Own Medieval Monster
  • 36. Chinwag with Your Evil Twin
  • 37. Dress Your Döppelganger
  • 38. Journey to the Uncanny Valley
  • 39. Consider a Victorian Doll
  • 40. Pass to Narnia
  • 41. Get from A to Z
  • 42. Sacralize the Absurd
  • 43. Do Nothing
  • 44. Turn Off the Sound
  • 45. List Your Top Five Weird Actors
  • 46. Cop a Deadpan
  • 47. Watch Strangers Watch You
  • 48. Perform Dorian
  • 49. Stare at Someone for a Long Time
  • 50. Visit an Abandoned Building
  • 51. Pen Obituaries
  • 52. Rub a Tombstone
  • 53. Doodle Around Your Grief
  • 54. Explore Your Dark Corners
  • 55. Suspend a Pomander
  • 56. Attend Your High Drone
  • 57. Drop Pennies to Wake Yourself Up
  • 58. Decide If You Are Asleep or Awake
  • 59. Scry
  • 60. Cast a Magic Circle
  • 61. Cut Your Own Tarot Deck
  • 62. Master Legerdemain
  • 63. Eat Spheroids
  • 64. Fancy a Nook
  • 65. Carve Soap
  • 66. Mix Your Own Color
  • 67. Make Ink
  • 68. Inscribe Your Own Runes
  • 69. Dream a Game of Surrealism
  • 70. Lay Off
  • 71. Save a Nihilist
  • 72. Press Phosphene into Being
  • 73. Hear Your Own Ears
  • 74. Taxonomize Silence
  • 75. Anatomize Something
  • 76. Identify with Your Hydrogen
  • 77. Distort Time
  • 78. Collect Toadstools
  • 79. Kick Over a Log
  • 80. Sniff Play-Doh
  • 81. Look Up
  • 82. Build a Model of Your Foot
  • 83. Seed a Wasteland
  • 84. Compose Your Own Atlas Obscura
  • 85. Speak "Takete"
  • 86. Form a Word That Is What It Means
  • 87. Paint Stones
  • 88. Be a Prophet
  • 89. Swerve
  • 90. Play the Flâneur
  • 91. Take Your Turn
  • 92. Glance Askance
  • 93. Perform the Percy Switcheroo
  • 94. Spend a Day as a Termite
  • 95. Frequent a Shoreline
  • 96. Manufacture a Portable Door
  • 97. Fear a Height
  • 98. Author Your Own Lexicon
  • 99. Complete a Final Project
  • Acknowledgments
  • Resources
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

English professor Wilson (Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck) offers a whimsical guide to embracing eccentricity. He provides 99 activities that aim to foster creativity and wonderment at everyday life, encouraging readers to "spend a day as a termite," "carve soap," and "review books that do not exist." Challenging 19th-century philosopher Charles Peirce's assertion that left-handedness brings about negativity, Wilson suggests readers try learning to write with their nondominant hand because the change in perspective may, he contends, enhance tolerance and generosity. The author describes Wiccan and Akkadian magicians' belief in the magic properties of circles--made with chalk, flour, or sticks--and proposes that readers create their own circle to protect them from stressors. Telling how George Eliot and Mark Twain came up with their pen names, Wilson urges readers to invent an alter ego and devise a backstory for them. The array of ideas range in level of practicality (making ink requires more ingredients than determining "if you are asleep or awake"), but Wilson doesn't skimp on the strangeness and delivers a self-help guide defiantly unlike any other. This quirky volume welcomes the unconventional with humor and insight. Agent: Matt McGowan, Frances Goldin Literary. (Nov.)

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Review by Library Journal Review

Author (Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy) and professor (English, Wake Forest Univ.) Wilson suggests nearly 100 ways to enhance one's life and "release your inner weird." Readers will enjoy the references to great philosophers, authors, and artists and the exercises geared to develop "weirdness" and hone one's skills. From creating a shadowbox to constructing a curvilinear terrarium, the exercises utilize mostly found or created objects, but the author does require readers to record their progress in a journal or notebook. Full of fascinating facts, the title has a resources page for readers to learn more about a quote or nugget of knowledge. This book is not just a fun read; it could also be used for educational purposes. Many of the exercises throughout foster creativity and imagination. Some could even function as writing prompts for teachers or professors to use in creative writing classes. VERDICT From start to finish, this book has great re-readability and a fun voice. Highly recommended for bibliophiles and those who want to break a little right-brain sweat.--Stephanie Webster

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