Oblique Strategies Brian Eno, Pae White, 1996 In 1975, the celebrated British musician, producer, and visual artist, Brian Eno, together with the late English painter Peter Schmidt, addressed the challenge of breaking out of creative roadblocks by writing a series of evocative phrases they dubbed "worthwhile dilemmas." These phrases, which suggest approaches to an impasse from another direction, became known as Oblique Strategies. Originally published as a deck of cards in an austere format, they became an underground hit and sold out in three revised editions. In 1996, as the Strategies were long out of print, Mr. Norton suggested to Eno a "fourth, yet again revised, and more universal edition." Norton edited the newly revised phrases and commissioned their translation into the six languages collectively spoken by the majority of mankind (English, Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic). Artist Pae White was commissioned to turn the cards' plain black-and-white format into an extravagantly colored graphic format. The set is housed in a Corian® container that is known separately as "Bill's Bad Bone." These strategy cards have found widespread use in dozens of countries, at writers' desks, in artists' studios, and even in boardrooms.
