# Chapter 6 ## Patterns Which Are Alive

# Chapter 5 ## Patterns of Space

This exercise of defining the hallmarks of a place and co side ring how they weave together to support patterns is also a vital part of storytelling.

# Chapter 4 ## Patterns of Events

These passages make me wonder if Christopher Alexander was a fan of Whitman.

# Chapter 3 Being Alive

I wish I could remember not who it was that held up the example of dithering, which was the ways in which a painting delivered from its subject, while still representing it, as the basis of art. I think this was in a guide on painting by an English artist I have. All the same, it reminds me of the quality without a James’s relationship to “exactness”.

I read, enjoyed, and took extensive notes on *A Pattern Language*, which is the second book in the Center for Environmental Structure Series by Christopher Alexander. *The Timeless Way of Building* is the first volume of that series. I thoroughly enjoyed *A Pattern Language* and expect the same will be true of this book. Already the introduction describes a process that my experience tells me has a direct relationship to literature. The individual patterns and contrasts of language have to be alive, and then they can be conjoined in an ever increasing congress toward a work, and then toward one's life work.

In my art I have become more systemic. In some ways, I think structure is needed to address specific faults, like when you erect a scaffold to address a fault in a building. The aim is to remove the scaffold at some point. Biblish is a structure, and software systems never quite seem to encompass the possibilities of lilting, singing, and laughing.

# The Quality

## Chapter 2 The Quality Without a Name