History

The first edition of Oblique Strategies were published in 1975 by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. Two more editions were published prior to 1980. They were published in the form of a deck of cards. Upon each card was printed one of the many observations Eno and Schmidt had made during their work together. These observations were found to be principles underlying their efforts and accomplishments, based upon intuition and intellect. The early editions were relatively simple. The cards were about three inches by four inches, solid black on one side, and each card had one maxim or saying printed in undramatic ten point sans serif font face. Each deck came in a small black box with "Oblique Strategies.. Brian Eno/Peter Schmidt" printed on the box. Only 150 of the first edition were made. The other two editions were only a bit more aggressively produced, perhaps five hundred to a thousand copies exist today worldwide.

Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt were long-time friends and collaborators on many creative, engineering projects. In 1980, Peter Schmidt met an untimely death in Spain, which unceremoniously ended their collaboration, and for many years Brian Eno refused to continue public work on Oblique Strategies, in honor of his fallen friend. He remained the curator, but it seemed to somehow profit or commercially make the Oblique Strategies available without his friend there to share the joy with him... Well, anything further on that would be speculation based on uncertain assumptions. Suffice it to say the Oblique Strategies have become quite rare and obscure, and the deck of cards itself never achieved mainstream popularity.

However, for Christmas of 1996 Eno decided to work with a gentleman named Peter Norton and his family. They published one final official edition. They made the cards much more elaborate, with more colorful and inspiring designs on each card. The rules were also written in several different languages on each card. There were only 4000 copies of this fourth edition made, and they were presented privately to friends. It is believed this final deck has reached throughout the world, but it is nearly impossible to attain a copy, as they were not intended for the public. Other names who contributed to the fourth edition include: Arto Lindsay, Ritva Saarikko, Dieter Rot, and Stewart Brand. Eno has contemplated the Oblique Strategies occasionally since. He published a diary once which included contemplations of other aphorisms that he considered including in some future version, if ever he felt compelled to do so. As of this writing, he still has not.

Others have also contemplated such additions, most notably the Whole Earth Catalog. The Oblique Strategies were also mentioned briefly in the 1991 film Slacker directed by Richard Linklatter. However, so was a Madonna pap smear, so I'm not sure how notable the Oblique Strategies being mentioned in the film Slacker might be, come to think of it. To be fair to the film, it did mention in the dialogue five of the Oblique Strategies' maxims: "Honor thy error as a hidden intention," "Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify," "Not building a wall; making a brick," Repetition is a form of change," and "Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy."

Function

Throughout the world people have realized a universality among these word combinations: they speak to the mind, to the heart and to the gut. Whatever obstacles a person may find in their life, meditating on one of these strategies can help a person focus towards their goal. These oblique strategies never provide answers, but they give a person impetus to look somewhere they hadn't thought of looking before. It's like having someone look over your shoulder and point out something you overlooked.

One can mull over the entire list of possibilites and choose the one most appropriate to the moment. One can opt to have a specific personal life issue in mind, or just attempt to grok the wisdom of the list as a whole without a personal issue upon which to reflect. However, we all have issues of one form or another, and exploring the list, most individuals will hear one cry out to them as words of hope, or opportunities to open the mind and think outside the box. These strategies were generally inspired by engineers and creative artists, but they speak to the entire spectrum of mankind, from architects to zoologists, and everyone in between.

Traditionally, the strategies are seen separately, on cards. An individual holds the deck in hand, contemplates a personal issue of any kind, and draws a single card from a shuffled deck. If only one card is selected, the proper procedure is to trust implicitly the advice of that strategy, even if its validity to the moment is unclear. One can choose to select more than one card as separate words of advice, or buffer it with the original situation.

"They are not final, as new ideas will present themselves, and others will become self-evident." - Brian Eno

The future of this project is unclear, but it should be pointed out that each of the decks also included blank cards, encouraging the possessor of each deck to add their own thoughts and observations to the deck. It can be surmised that this project does not have to end with the untimely passing of Peter Schmidt, but that each person can opt to create their own deck from scratch, using Eno and Schmidt's axioms as a starting point and adding their own at their leisure.

The List

I do this with hesitation. The following list is unarguably copyrighted by Brian Eno himself, and will no doubt be removed from this guide entry by some uninspired lawyer. The intent of this document is not to gain financially at the expense of anyone, but to spread the knowledge of this little known but really keen neato cool idea. Furthermore, since Mr. Eno has had a quarter of a century to make this project commercially available to the masses, and has yet to do so, one can easily surmise he never will. So we're not hurting anybody here.

The following list is a condensed version of all four of the original versions, and also includes examples from Brian Eno's own publically published diary, as well as a version made public by the Whole Earth Catalog. It should be pointed out that there were several minor differences between each of the four official editions. Also, any two people would look at this list and go, "what's that one doing there," or "I know you like this one but I prefer that one." So part of the fun of this list is the endless discussion and interpretation it can stir between friends, especially if they've all recently lubricated themselves on alcohol.

There are close to two hundred examples in all, and a person reading this may opt to make their own makeshift version of the Oblique Strategies deck by purchasing some index cards and writing the following down by hand. Adding to or removing them as one so desires.

For more information, try http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies or go to any Internet search engine and type in "Oblique Strategies." You might get lucky.