Imagine a Guiltless Creative Life

I stumbled upon this talk while looking at a few different opinions about why America, in large part, seems to be suppressing creativity among its children to favor rote memorization and the standardized testing industry. But before you decide to click through my moralizing post, let me assure you that this TED talk is not about national failures in education, it's about the failure of Western Humanist ideals to serve those brave souls who opt to undertake a creative life.

I have not read Elizabeth Gilbert's "freakishly successful" book Eat, Pray, Love so I have no idea about her proclivities or preoccupations. I do know that I have now watched this TED talk twice in the past two months and found oddly coincidental connections between the ideas it presents and my own fleeting forays into culture that I'm periodically allowed on a weekend afternoon. I'm also willing to grant her a modicum of instant respect for flawlessly pulling off the use of the word "odious" without sounding at all pretentious.

Her summary of the antiquity's perception of the creative spirit came just as I embarked on teaching Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass to my class. For those of you unfamiliar with this brilliant amalgam of fantasy, geography, and quantum physics I will simply say that the relationship between man and daemon is the crux of the plot. Furthermore, the notion of Roman 'genius' adds another level of complexity to my mixed-bag of feelings for ancient Roman culture. Feelings which I've recently been revisiting through HBO's hyper-sensationalized (and short lived) ROME.

* * * * *

Can you imagine a time before creativity was solely the burden of the creative? A time when we could share responsibility for our successes and failures? Think of the culture of gratitude and humility that might result from an ego-less perception of brilliance. . . that might just be the enlightened world the Humanists were hoping for.

The Force

March 5, 2005

Build your own lightsaber resources:

Instructables— Build Your Own Lightsaber for $33 in 33 Minutes

You'll have to sign up to be a member (free) but it's worth it if you want to really have the most authentic Jedi weapon reproduction dangling from your tunic belt.

Build Your Own Lightsaber

No joke, right below some lightsaber clip art a line of text reads, "I've chopped this page into two pieces to improve the load times." At the bottom of the page you can, "Hyperspace Jump to Part 2." Awesome. Also contains a link to some thoughts about the veracity of The Force. As a person who has actually lost sleep contemplating the strength of my midichlorian count, I found this page especially enlightening.

Finally, you're no full fledged Jedi until you have your rotoscoping powers fully developed. Learn from Master Kin-Char Bamin:

Rotoscoping using FXhome Effectlab Pro

Believe me, there's nothing cooler than being a Jedi.

Chicken!

February 4, 2005

Exceptional Chicken Related Things:

• "know your chicken" by Cibo Matto on VIVA! La Woman
  
• chicken fingers (Oh delicious contradiction!)
  
• Milla Jovovich's chicken-adoration scene in The Fifth Element
• home made chicken noodle soup
  
• "C-h-i-c-k-e-n Spells Chicken" by the McGee Bros (featured on the Ghost World Soundtrack)
  
• Eggs ("Come into my tummy, oh so very yummy")
  
• Taxidermy chicken on the dining room table (see below)

Horrible Chicken By-products:

• Nuggets
  
• Playing chicken
  
• Anemic yolks
  
• Debeaking
  
• Pacific Northwest hipster artist appropriation of chicken imagery
  
• Salmonella
  
• "The Chicken Dance"

Chilled Out

January 11, 2005

At some point the world's longest kitchen remodel yielded a shiny new fridge. The fridge signaled the end of an era back in 2005. No more outdoor meals from the hot plate. No more yellowjackets in the stew. Plastic cutlery was bid adieu.

Many a member of the household was thrilled with all that the new refrigerator promised on the culinary front. Being a simpleton, I just appreciated the play of pretty patterns across the stainless steel surface. 

A few days before the Christmas tree came down I spied the reflection of its lights in the door of this high-tech ice box and immediately activated the Photo Phazer. 

This was one of my favorite one-minute movies in 2005. It was simply me moving the camera back and forth along a short horizontal path so that different bands of colored reflection grew and shrank, appeared and disappeared, in an illusionary journey atop the metal door.

* * * * * 

Soon after that I would watch the mesmerizing work of Jeremy Blake in Punch Drunk Love. It seemed I wasn't entirely alone in my aesthetic preoccupations. Or, out of deference for his preeminent superstardom, I should say that Jeremy Blake wasn't alone in his. 

Looking Back

January 1, 2005

Four years ago I resolved to undertake a daily practice. For one year I would capture a short film each day using my Photo Phazer. The Photo Phazer was my first digital camera. It was designed for children and took deplorable images that, at best, could be printed 4" x 6." It was also capable of taking 60 seconds of video, and by video I mean 60 crummy photographs in quick succession which were displayed one after another to create the illusion of video (essentially employing the same principle that creates the semblance of movement in animation).

These daily films were my first foray into cinema. They were silent. And they have been swallowed by the hard drive within the last PC I'll ever own. I'd hoped to share them with you, but in light of their corporeal absence, I can only offer you a single image from each film. 

You see, after downloading each minute-long movie into the PC, I'd isolate one shot of the sixty to use as a representative still if I ever managed to exhibit the project. As I neither possess the films any longer, a fact that only further entrenches my views about the danger digital media poses to the historical record, nor did I manage to keep up with the demands of making a daily film beyond May of that year, I fear that the only exhibition of this five month obsession will be here.

Which is fine. I'll walk you through a few memories and you can marvel at the banality of my: 

a) existence

b) aesthetic inclinations

c) photographic equipment

Although, I must confess that it is just those failings that make a few of these pictures compelling. Perhaps, over time, you'll come to agree.

Poisoned Apple

The French have a saying for that moment when you’ve had enough; it translates into English as, “My bowl is full!” Tonight, my bowl is full of Apple. I’m tired of Apple’s veneer of utilitarian design. I’m fed up with the constant optional software upgrades that render my system obsolete before I’ve even started exploring under the hood. In short, I’m more than a little cross with Apple for succumbing to the Capitalist pitfall of blatantly pandering to stock rather than customers. Honestly, have they watched their own Ridley Scott commercial lately?

For two weeks I’ve been unable to easily load new posts in iWeb (and no, this does not ‘serve me right’ for using iWeb). My program frequently crashes, taking all my most recent witticisms with it. The Oz-like fellows over at Apple Core send nice emails saying they’ve fixed all the problems so that I’m lured back to clicking the Publish button yet again, only to have it malfunction.

iMad. iFrustrated. And tonight I’ve decided, after yet another game of nebulous run-around with the poorly implemented MobileMe, that I’m going to move this blog elsewhere.

So pay attention my three readers, because soon I will be leaving, and if I don’t take you with me, I’ll have to bribe other people to read my posts.

Five More From CNET

Some time has passed since I decided to foist my musical sensibilities on you. Even Portishead came out of hiding since I last wrote about CNET’s repository of free music. The next five songs also drop from CNET’s completely legal server-trove of MP3 tracks. Apart from my subjective taste there’s not much that unifies them. The first two are more on the electronic spectrum whereas the last three eschew technology for good ol’ fashioned instruments. I don’t know if any of these songs make good on my promise last time to reveal “how I’m five years behind the times.” But don’t worry, I remain resoundingly behind the times.

1. Black Cat by Ladytron

There’s an early-90’s industrial earnestness to this track that I really dig. The synths and bells offset the faux-severity of the German— if you could pick the music for a club scene in an overly sincere indie vampire movie from fifteen years ago you’d be hard pressed to choose between this and those nice KMFDM fellows.

2. We Own the Sky (Maps Remix) by M83

When M83’s DeadCities, RedSeas, & LostGhosts was released in 2003 it showed plenty of promise but little restraint. Every track was a wall of sound extravaganza that even My Bloody Valentine would have found overwrought. While it did have moments of profound beauty there was no rhythm to the overall set; no resting points to break up the wash of sound.

Time seems to have remedied this tripping point. While I haven’t rushed out to purchase M83’s new Saturdays = Youth I’ve been encouraged to do so by the three fabulous tracks offered up on CNET. Here the aural bombardment is tempered with more employment of the human voice and well-considered movements within tracks. This remix hints at what Moby might have become if he’d pushed himself to continue exploring the stylings evident on Everything Is Wrong.

3. Fake Empire by The National

The voice. The melancholy. The adolescent triumph over the night. All your best summer evenings have been distilled into The National syrup.

4. Albert Hash by Hezekiah Jones

Sometimes I just want to listen to a simple duet with guitar. It should have a sweet hook and little pretense. I’ll allow a bit of navel-gazing but I don’t want ponderous sound scapes or drug-induced jam sessions. Albert Hash is just such a song. It tells a brief tale and demonstrates that a song can be layered without being “produced.” Its traditional sound is matched by a very traditional play time. I guess there was a day when it was possible to create an entire world in a little over two minutes.

5. Is a Woman by Lambchop

One of the hottest debates in high school was whether or not there were more strong female vocalists or male vocalists in modern music (for those of you interested in entertaining such an inane question we defined modern as the 1960’s to the year of said debate, around 1993). At that time I was firmly in the female camp but as my musical tastes change I find that the deeper notes of the male voice resonate better with my adult moods. Kurt Wagner’s voice is so adept (download the alternate version of The Distance From Her to There to get a sense of his range), so magical, that I believe he could craft an appealing song for nearly anyone’s ear.

And while I tend to think of music videos as a scourge to the music industry I must confess that the video for Is a Woman stands on its own as a wonderful work of animation. 



So ends the new five. I shall stop before I become the sorry embodiment of a Nick Hornby character.