Love these illustrations from Jake Foreman.
Unsolicited Advice
Jim Henson: Idea Man, Ron Howard
Had the pleasure to see the Muppets in a wonderful exhibit in Grand Rapids last year and this film served as an excellent reminder of that inspirational day.
In his own words:
“Life’s like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending.”
I will likely always be more of a George Carlin or Kurt Vonnegut, but I will forever strive to be a Jim Henson.
The Creative Act: A Way of Being
“All that matters is that you are making something you love, to the best of your ability, here and now.”
Was hoping for a few real world examples from Rubin’s illustrious music career, but this is still an inspiring book on the creative process.
Here is something I need to remember:
“Living life as an artist is a practice.
You are either engaging in the practice
or you’re not.
It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it.
It’s like saying, “I’m not good at being a monk.”
You are either living as a monk or you’re not.
We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output.
The real work of the artist
is a way of being in the world.”
Also love this:
“Beware of the assumption
that the way you work
is the best way
simply because
it’s the way you’ve done it before.”
Later, he writes of the Ramones:
“Innocence brings forth innovation. A lack of knowledge can create more openings to break new ground. The Ramones thought they were making mainstream bubblegum pop. To most others, the lyrical content alone- about lobotomies, sniffing glue, and pinheads- was enough to challenge this assumption.
While the band saw themselves as the next Bay City Rollers, they unwittingly invented punk rock and started a countercultural revolution. While the music of the Bay City Rollers had great success in its time, the Ramones’ singular take on rock and roll became more popular and influential. Of all the explanations of the Ramones, the most may be: innovation through ignorance.”
Hey, ho, let’s go.
Rest in Peace, Steve Albini
I know there’s “cooler” albums to talk about, but In Utero and Surfer Rosa were profoundly important to my teens, and I haven’t stopped listening to Mclusky Do Dallas since seeing them in San Francisco this past March.
My friend Tom had the good fortune of studying under Albini in the early 2000s and had this to say:
“Steve is one of a literal handful of people that I would consider a role model. In addition to opening my ears to what a good record should sound like, he showed me what a good person should act like. As an impressionable teenager and into my early 20s, he taught me how and why to treat people ethically and how to give absolutely zero fucks about the opinion of people who don’t.”
Some recommended reading:
Steve Albini Shows That Punk Rock Ethics Are Good Business: “If you start from the premise of refusing to be an asshole, then a lot of other decisions kind of make themselves.”
And of course his famous letter to Kurt Cobain:
“I explained this to Kurt but I thought I’d better reiterate it here. I do not want and will not take a royalty on any record I record. No points. Period. I think paying a royalty to a producer or engineer is ethically indefensible. The band write the songs. The band play the music. It’s the band’s fans who buy the records. The band is responsible for whether it’s a great record or a horrible record. Royalties belong to the band.
I would like to be paid like a plumber: I do the job and you pay me what it’s worth. The record company will expect me to ask for a point or a point and a half. If we assume three million sales, that works out to 400,000 dollars or so. There’s no fucking way I would ever take that much money. I wouldn’t be able to sleep.”
We’ll always have the music. I suggest you crank it up to 11.
You Don’t Know How to Drive
If I never share a pixelated meme again, it will be too soon.
But this one is important. Otherwise, it’s gonna be a looong summer.
It’s quite simple, really:
“When most drivers see the first “lane closed ahead” sign in a work zone, they slow too quickly and move to the lane that will continue through the construction area. This driving behavior can lead to unexpected and dangerous lane switching, serious crashes and road rage.
Zipper merging, however, benefits individual drivers as well as the public at large. Research shows that these dangers decrease when motorists use both lanes until reaching the defined merge area and then alternate in “zipper” fashion into the open lane.”
Most well-meaning motorists succumb to “motive misattribution,” “assuming someone’s intentions are evil or misguided while your own are virtuous,” thinking if one zips they they are “a selfish, reckless cheater who cuts in line, when actually, if we all merged one at a time as he had, everyone might get where they were going faster.”
Tell the others.
From The Journal of Kurt Cobain, Gone 30 Years Ago Today
- Don’t rape
- Don’t be prejudiced
- Don’t be sexist
- Love your children
- Love your neighbor
- Love yourself
Don’t let your opinions obstruct the aforementioned list.
Benedict Cumberbatch and Ian McKellen Read Letters by Kurt Vonnegut
From two Letters Live events, great letters filled with great advice from one of the twentieth century’s best minds.
Key takeaways:
Reduce and stabilize your population.
Stop poisoning the air, the water, and the topsoil.
Stop preparing for war and start dealing with your real problems.
Teach your kids, and yourselves, too, while you’re at it, how to inhabit a small planet without helping to kill it.
Stop thinking science can fix anything if you give it a trillion dollars.
Stop thinking your grandchildren will be OK no matter how wasteful or destructive you may be, since they can go to a nice new planet on a spaceship. That is really mean, and stupid.
And so on. Or else.
And for your own personal growth:
“Practice any art… no matter how well or badly, not to get money or fame, but to experience becoming. To find out what’s inside you. To make your soul grow… Do art for the rest of your lives.”
(Via Open Culture)
Herzog’s Advice for Filmmakers
Apparently this list is on the back cover of A Guide for the Perplexed. Need to pick this up ASAP.
- Always take the initiative.
- There is nothing wrong with spending a night in jail if it means getting the shot you need.
- Send out all your dogs and one might return with prey.
- Never wallow in your troubles; despair must be kept private and brief.
- Learn to live with your mistakes.
- Expand your knowledge and understanding of music and literature, old and modern.
- That roll of unexposed celluloid you have in your hand might be the last in existence, so do something impressive with it.
- There is never an excuse not to finish a film.
- Carry bolt cutters everywhere.
- Thwart institutional cowardice.
- Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
- Take your fate into your own hands.
- Learn to read the inner essence of a landscape.
- Ignite the fire within and explore unknown territory.
- Walk straight ahead, never detour.
- Manoeuvre and mislead, but always deliver.
- Don’t be fearful of rejection.
- Develop your own voice.
- Day one is the point of no return.
- A badge of honor is to fail a film theory class.
- Chance is the lifeblood of cinema.
- Guerrilla tactics are best.
- Take revenge if need be.
- Get used to the bear behind you.
(Via Kottke)
Walking, Productivity and Creativity
I have walked and jogged and ran quite a bit since the pandemic began some 87 years ago, but this summer I decided to step it up (unfortunate pun intended).
100,000 steps per week, every week, for twenty weeks. Two million steps. Sounded like a reasonable goal. I didn’t think about my Fitbit dying, being sick, being injured, plans, writing, just not wanting to fucking go outside. Making up for those days though, really pushing myself to get to 100,000k, those days truly made it worth it and the experience and the accomplishment all the more rewarding. I ended up taking 2,038,018 steps, which ended up a bit under 1,000 miles. Which in retrospect, that should have been the goal. (I dumped the data on Facebook if you really wanna see/really just wanna be my friend).
“Every walk is a sort of crusade,” so said Thoreau.
“I would walk for six or eight hours a day, composing thoughts that I would later jot down on paper,” wrote Nietzsche, who by his thirties would walk closer to ten hours a day and write much of which he is known for. “Sit as little as possible; do not believe any idea that was not born in the open air and of free movement — in which the muscles do not also revel… Sitting still… is the real sin against the Holy Ghost.”
This summer on my walks, I also listened to Atomic Habits, a book that is billed as “an easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones.” Lots of great stuff in there: we imitate the people we envy. Only turn the TV on if you know what you want to watch. Never make a single aspect of your identity an overwhelming portion of who you are. Until you work as hard as those you admire or envy, don’t explain away their success as luck. And so on.
A big one was making habits more attractive by rewarding oneself or combining habits. “Doing the thing you need to do means doing the thing(s) you get to.”
So usually if I want to read the news, check my personal Instagram, I do it while walking. If I want to listen to a particular podcast, I do so by walking. I make work calls in the middle of a two hour hike.
I walk more than I run, but by combining habits I feel like I am getting more done, even when large chunks of time are dedicated to clearing my head, or thinking about my writing, or brainstorming for the printing company I co-own. Not all of these tasks are rewarding, but it allows me to multitask and often breaks up my walks into nice chunks, which itself is rewarding.
I much prefer the outdoors to the gym. Now that it’s winter in Michigan I imagine running through snow and chopping wood and basically just living my best Rocky 4.
I would recommend doing the same. Maybe listen to Atomic Habits while you do. If you happen to live in Michigan, Joseph Beyer just wrote about some great places to have a winter walk. And regardless, good luck and happy trails. Keep on truckin’.
Attainable Aspirations Inspired by Great Humans of the Past
A friend has been going through what they are confident can be defined as a “midlife crisis.” I too have been thinking about a lot of the “big picture” stuff the last year or two, and have been trying to get better at living life. I do a lot of reading, offline and on, and a site always full of aspirational nuggets of wisdom at Maria Popova’s Marginalian. Took me over five months to get to this blog entry, but there is a lot worth taking in. She writes in her introduction:
“If we abide by the common definition of philosophy as the love of wisdom, and if Montaigne was right — he was — that philosophy is the art of learning to die, then living wisely is the art of learning how you will wish to have lived. A kind of resolution in reverse.”
I believe it’s all worth reading, but I really like the quote from philosopher, mathematician, historian, and Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell on broadening your life as it grows shorter:
“Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.”
Also really like this thought on kindness from Tolstoy:
“The kinder and the more thoughtful a person is, the more kindness he can find in other people. Kindness enriches our life; with kindness mysterious things become clear, difficult things become easy, and dull things become cheerful.”
Again, it’s all worth reading and pandering, but I will end with this quote from Roman Stoic Senaca before getting to my final point:
“There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
“Midlife Crisis” sounds terrifying, but I think it’s the word “crisis” that scares us. Two definitions of the word, however, can give one hope:
- The turning point for better or worse in an acute disease or fever.
- An emotionally significant event or radical change of status in a person’s life.
A crisis does not have to be bad.
The Beatles and Productivity
I spent all of the Sunday after Thanksgiving watching Get Back, arguably not the most productive way to spend a day. But The Beatles’ productivity stuck with me, months and months later.
Unsurprising, their staggering output is undeniable proof of just how productive they were in such a short period of time. Former journalist Tom Whitwell had similar thoughts, outlining ten lessons from the film. It’s a good read – the first is something I have had to deal with and could also accuse myself of in the past:
The first rule of improvisation (and brainstorming) is “yes… and.” When someone suggests an idea, plays a note, says a line, you accept it completely, then build on it. That’s how improvisational comedy or music flows. The moment someone says ‘no,’ the flow is broken. It’s part of deferring judgement, where you strictly separate idea generation from idea selection.
As they slog through Don’t Let Me Down, George breaks the spell. Instead of building and accepting he leaps to judgement, saying “I think it’s awful.” Immediately, John and Paul lay down the rules: “Well, have you got anything? “You’ve gotta come up with something better.”
(Via Kottke)
You Can Be a Different Person After the Pandemic
From an essay by Olga Khazan:
“…the person who emerges from quarantine doesn’t have to be the same old you. Scientists say that people can change their personalities well into adulthood. And what better time for transformation than now, when no one has seen you for a year, and might have forgotten what you were like in the first place?
It was long thought that people just are a certain way, and they’ll remain that way forever. The Greek physician Hippocrates believed that people’s personalities were governed by the amounts of phlegm, blood, black bile and yellow bile that flowed through their bodies.
Modern science, of course, has long since discarded notions of bile and humors. And now,it appears the idea that our personalities are immutable is also not quite true. Researchers have found that adults can change the five traits that make up personality — extroversion, openness to experience, emotional stability, agreeableness and conscientiousness — within just a few months. Much as in Dr. Steffel’s case, the traits are connected, so changing one might lead to changes in another.
Changing a trait requires acting in ways that embody that trait, rather than simply thinking about it. As Richard Wiseman, a psychology professor at the University of Hertfordshire, put it in “The As If Principle,” you can behave “as if” you are the person you want to be. Pretty soon, you might find that it is you.”
Werner Herzog on Skateboarding
“I’m not familiar with the scene of skateboarding. At the same time, I had the feeling, yes, that’s kind of my people… You have to accept trial and error…”
Fuck January
You’re coming off the holidays. It’s cold outside. It’s snowing. Not suggesting be outright lazy for a month, but lean into the new year. You’re much more likely to set goals and keep them if you formulate a game plan.
I keep a planner and in the back pages run monthly tasks that I use as a reference as I fill in my “free time” week to week. This year I decided to be realistic and, outside of a few time-sensitive tasks, combine my “to-do” list for January and February.
I know Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow today and that means six more weeks of 2020. But if you’ve seen Groundhog Day, you know the final act is when Bill Murray decides to become the man he wants to be.
“He gets to know everybody in the town,” writes Austin Kleon. “He sees what problems there are in the town to solve, and how he can use his powers to help… He also throws himself into his work: he crafts a super eloquent speech for Punxsutawney Phil, which he presumably gives every day. He learns French. He learns how to play the piano. He learns how to sculpt ice. And it’s when he finally masters these things, when he’s turned himself into a person worth loving, it’s then that Rita notices him, and they live happily ever after. Phil learns, as Hugh Macleod says in his book Ignore Everybody, ‘The best way to get approval is to not need it.'”
If you are down on yourself for not getting shit done during the lockdown, or surprised life hasn’t gotten magically better because it is no longer 2020, or embarrassed that you have yet to start your resolutions (or never set any in the first place), I will just say this: Fuck that.
Current Header: Thelonious Monk
In 1960, Dixieland soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy joined the jazz legend’s band for a tour with John Coltrane. Young, wide-eyed and starstruck, he absorbed all he could, eventually writing down Monk’s words of wisdom. Applicable in jazz, so too applicable in life:
Just because you’re not a drummer, doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep time.
You’ve got to dig it to dig it, you dig?
Avoid the hecklers.
Always leave them wanting more.
Stay in shape!
When you’re swinging, swing some more!
(What should we wear tonight?) Sharp as possible!
Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along & do it. A genius is the one most like himself.
They tried to get me to hate white people, but someone would always come along & spoil it.
How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change
But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices — and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.
Moreover, it’s important for us to understand which levels of government have the biggest impact on our criminal justice system and police practices. When we think about politics, a lot of us focus only on the presidency and the federal government. And yes, we should be fighting to make sure that we have a president, a Congress, a U.S. Justice Department, and a federal judiciary that actually recognize the ongoing, corrosive role that racism plays in our society and want to do something about it. But the elected officials who matter most in reforming police departments and the criminal justice system work at the state and local levels.
It’s mayors and county executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police unions. It’s district attorneys and state’s attorneys that decide whether or not to investigate and ultimately charge those involved in police misconduct. Those are all elected positions. In some places, police review boards with the power to monitor police conduct are elected as well. Unfortunately, voter turnout in these local races is usually pitifully low, especially among young people — which makes no sense given the direct impact these offices have on social justice issues, not to mention the fact that who wins and who loses those seats is often determined by just a few thousand, or even a few hundred, votes.
So the bottom line is this: if we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. We have to do both.
And this speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. at Stanford, 1967:
But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.
And, this past week, Killer Mike:
So that’s why children are burning it to the ground. They don’t know what else to do. And it is the responsibility of us to make this better — right now. We don’t want to see one officer charged, we want to see four officers prosecuted and sentenced. We don’t want to see Targets burning, we want to see the system that sets up for systemic racism burnt to the ground.
Remember
It’s not all about luck.
“In any great outcome, there is a component of luck. Yet if life were all about luck, the same people wouldn’t repeatedly do great things. When someone repeatedly does great things it is because they prepared in advance to advance to recognize, work on, and fill in the blanks when necessary. This is the essence of intelligent preparation.”
That things take time.
“I can’t give my students more time in their lives; but what I try to do is change the way they think about and value it in the first place. There is no Soylent version of thought and reflection — creativity is unpredictable, and it simply takes time. “
And to try not to compare yourself to others.
“Comparing ourselves to others allows them to drive our behavior. This type of comparison is between you and someone else. Sometimes this comparison is motivating and sometimes it’s destructive. You can be anything but you can’t be everything. When we compare ourselves to others, we’re often comparing their best features against our average ones. Not only do we naturally want to be better than them, the unconscious realization that we are not often becomes self-destructive.”
Your Team
Cannot understate how proud I am of the cast and crew of The Dinner Parting. Like at work, like in life, I only want to surround myself with people better than myself. Always build the best team you can:
“One of the best pieces of advice I ever got, back when I was 23 and newly out of school, is this: look around and figure out who you want to be on your team. Figure out the people around you that you want to work with for the rest of your life. Figure out the people who are smart & awesome, who share your values, who get things done — and maybe most important, who you like to be with and who you want to help win. And treat them right, always. Look for ways to help, to work together, to learn. Because in 20 years you’ll all be in amazing places doing amazing things.”
“The ancient commission of the writer has not changed…
He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.
Furthermore, the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit — for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.”
“Our world hangs like a magnificent jewel in the vastness of space…
…Every one of us is a part of that jewel. A facet of that jewel. And in the perspective of infinity, our differences are infinitesimal. We are intimately related. May we never even pretend that we are not.”
Writing Advice to Myself
Don’t say something is good or bad. That’s subjective.
Instead, describe what about it you like or dislike. Probably still subjective. But less so.
Dealing with People On the Internet
This issue of The Discourse has some great advice on dealing with people online.
(Via Kottke)
- Reward your “enemies” when they agree with you, exhibit good behavior, or come around on an issue. Otherwise they have no incentive to ever meet you halfway.
- Accept it when people apologize. People should be allowed to work through ideas and opinions online. And that can result in some messy outcomes. Be forgiving.
- Sometimes people have differing opinions because they considered something you didn’t.
- Take a second.
- There’s always more to the story. You probably don’t know the full context of whatever you’re reading or watching.
- Create the kind of communities and ideas you want people to talk about.
- You don’t always have the moral high ground. You are not always right.
- Block and mute quickly. Worry about the bubbles that creates later.
- There but for the grace of God go you.
(Via Kottke)
Vonnegut’s 7 Commandments
- Reduce and stabilize your population.
- Stop poisoning the air, the water, and the topsoil.
- Stop preparing for war and start dealing with your real problems.
- Teach your kids, and yourselves, too, while you’re at it, how to inhabit a small planet without helping to kill it.
- Stop thinking science can fix anything if you give it a trillion dollars.
- Stop thinking your grandchildren will be OK no matter how wasteful or destructive you may be, since they can go to a nice new planet on a spaceship. That is really mean, and stupid.
- And so on. Or else.
(Via Open Culture)
Semi-Related:
A map of the world where the size of the country is determined by its population.
A brief, animated explanation of Stoicism from TED-Ed. I picked this book up a year or two ago and 2019 is the year I actually go through it. Provided I can actually find it.