OBLIQUE STRATEGIES

Ever been in a creative situation (any creative situation, whether it's working on your rock opera, drafting a grant proposal, or getting in to work first thing in the morning) and you just cannot make another decision to save your life. You're stuck. What do you do? Well, Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt created a solution for you -- a deck of cards printed with "worthwhile dilemmas" designed to jog your mind and give you a certain direction to take, a decison-making-helper. You don't have to take the suggestion you're given -- you can always do the opposite of what it says, or simply take another card until you find one that resonates for you, and off you go. Wasn't that nice of them?

There have been four editions (1975, 1978, 1979, and 1996) of the Oblique Strategies, each with their own set of pre-printed cards. Each edition has some changes -- some cards are removed from the deck altogether, some are re-worded, and some are the same. All editions of actual card decks are extremely rare and have not been commercially available. I was fortunate enough to own a copy of the fourth edition for a while (money constraints insisted that I sell it to an interested party who would not have been able to obtain it otherwise; mine was a gift and I don't know who sent it to me). This newest edition of the Oblique Strategies is astonishingly decorated -- almost excessively so -- but for the milky translucence of the entire design. The box that the cards are held in is made of Corian, whatever that is -- a smooth white stone-like substance that remains cool to the touch. The cards themselves are post-rave style, dreamy, a triumph of computer imaging and good taste.

 If you want your own deck, I suggest you get on Ebay and start searching... a deck will probably cost you around $200, though sometimes you can find a desperate sucker (like me) who will let one go for $150. It's pretty unlikely, especially if it's a first edition... my suggestion is to find a list of all the card texts and make your own pretty hand-decorated deck. Arts and crafts will save your sorry ass (it certainly will mine).

Oblique Strategies links:

Greg Taylor's page on Oblique Strategies is by far the most complete examination of the cards, including scans and photographs of the fourth edition that are much better than the ones I have here.

Shockwave random Strategies generator

Javascript-powered random Strategies generator

A Perl random generator by Peter D'Adamo

Oblique Strategies for your Palm Pilot!

Oblique Strategies on everything.blockstackers.com (formerly slashdot.org)

card text list by Derek Sivers @Hitme.com

OVOS, a London-based dance music production team, has produced a WAP-enabled version of the Oblique Strategies (for the technologically challenged, that means that if you have a WAP-enabled device such as a PDA or mobile phone, you can get Oblique Strategies on it!