Alignment Assignment

For an art class, I had to contemplate the word ‘Alignment’ as it would be used in art. I thought for quite a while and nothing came to mind. So I asked myself, “What is alignment?” Lining up in a straight line or pattern (Stonehenge) or having a common point of view or grouping (political parties). But what is alignment in art, poetry or writing? Nothing came to my pitifully vacant mind. I know drinking kills brain cells over time. I used to say while “tying one on” I was selectively pruning my grey matter, but during this assignment I now know which cells were killed off during that killer party at 2nd floor of Switlik dorm in the spring of ’86.

So, I will ramble a bit (the opposite of alignment), and we’ll see where this goes.

In contemplating alignment, the first thing I thought of was my hair. This would be where you tighten your seatbelt and press the “I believe” button. If I took one strand of my hair and created repeating points from beginning to end then I could align those points to various stars strewn across the universe. Take those individual points and multiple them by the thousands of hairs on my head or what seems like thousands according to the look of my bathroom floor. The results would show why my hair does crazy summer-salts, frizzes, and goes perfectly straight in one section (a black hole) all in the same day. You see, here is my theory. My head is in constant movement from talking, dodging bullets, and what not, along with the earth rotating around the sun, while the sun moves around the galaxy. I am not too sure what the Milky Way galaxy does within the universe (side bar: what kind of name is Milky Way for a galaxy anyway), but I am pretty sure it involves some type of rotational activity. And looking at the frizz of my hair and the 9 or 10 stray curls, it is fair to say the spinning has quite a substantial force.

Oh thank Hera, the queen of the heavens, the concept of art and alignment has finally been channeled to my hair through the great cosmos. OK fine, I goggled.

“The fundamental element of graphic arts is to determine the alignment of the picture or text upon the page in coordination with the other pictures or text blocks on the page. There is edge alignment and center alignment.” – stolen from some really smart art dude’s research paper posted on the web

So, I take this definition of alignment and look at my story/art journals. Is there alignment? Ah no, my journals pretty much look like chickens were set loose upon the pages with scraps of paper and a glue stick.