This is a blog about the creative process. It features anecdotes and links and other glimpses into the act of creating things.
Creativity is beautiful and blinding and painful and the most human thing we do. Let's look at it some more. It matters.
Things I otherwise write or have written:
A book.
Items in many anthologies.
Plays of varying lengths.
Video games.
Commercials.
Radio stories on a broad range of topics for various national public radio programs.
Assorted blogs.
A Twitter feed (@johnmoe).
Book reviews.
Other creative things I've done:
Hosted public radio shows of the national and local varieties.
Sung in rock bands.
Acted in many stage plays and commercials.
Ran an electronic greeting cards site, poorly.
Edited Amazon.com's toy store site.
Parented.
I've also worked as a file clerk for a law firm that represented Exxon in the Valdez spill.
Theme by nostrich.
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Getting it unblocked
25 professional creative folks describe how to get it moving.
2.
Don’t all sit in a meeting and somehow expect that something will pop into your collective conscious. Don’t read the design press, don’t go to google images or youtube. Don’t force it – get out of the studio. Go to the theatre, go to gigs, go to museums, take time off work, go for a walk, stop looking at your computer, turn off your mobile and the tv, Have a chat with your mates about something meaningful.
(via kottke)
Video
Here is Nirvana doing a cover of Seasons In The Sun. Cobain on drums, Grohl on bass, Novoselic on guitar. I think most bands at least kick around the notion of a “let’s switch instruments” song but here it is in action. As with their Bowie cover at the Unplugged concert, there is a hesitancy to Cobain here because he’s shy and might not know the song all the way and is probably high. But as with that Bowie cover or a lot of his down tempo stuff, the hesitancy works. You also see in these clips that it was probably Grohl who held that band together. (clip found via Kottke)
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Why is James Franco on General Hospital?
I have been obsessed with performance art for over a decade-ever since the Mexican performance artist Guillermo Gomez-Pena came to visit my class at Cal Arts summer school. I finally took the plunge and experimented with the form myself when I signed on to appear on 20 episodes of “General Hospital” as the bad-boy artist “Franco, just Franco.” I disrupted the audience’s suspension of disbelief, because no matter how far I got into the character, I was going to be perceived as something that doesn’t belong to the incredibly stylized world of soap operas. Everyone watching would see an actor they recognized, a real person in a made-up world.
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IS THERE ENOUGH MAGIC?
The public radio story that made my wife cry this morning was Euan Kerr’s interview with Jason Reitman on Minnesota Public Radio.
Especially this part:
He’s the son of Ivan Reitman, who’s produced and directed a slew of hit movies, including “Animal House” and “Ghostbusters.” As a youngster Jason was interested in film, but he knew as the son of a famous director people would expect the worst of him.
“Most likely you are a spoiled brat, you have no talent, and more than likely you have a drug or alcohol problem,” he said. “And I thought, ‘Why go into a career where these are the presumptions going in. Best case scenario: I live in my father’s shadow. Worst case scenario: I fail on a very public level. And I actually went pre-med. I thought I was going to be a doctor.”
And that would probably have been that, except his father stepped in. Ivan Reitman told the story of how he had once approached his own father asking for the money to open what would have been Toronto’s first submarine sandwich shop.
“And my grandfather said ‘You know Ivan I am sure they are very popular, and they are very delicious, and if I gave you the money you could open one of these shops and you could make a lot of money. But there is not enough magic in it for you.’”
That launched Ivan Reitman on the path that led to Hollywood. Now years later, he told Jason he didn’t think there was enough magic for him in med school.
Video
Allen Iverson’s crossover dribble. The crossover had been used before but Iverson is broadly credited with pioneering the double crossover. I could watch this 500 million times. I don’t know why it inspires me but it does.
Also, Iverson, after briefly retiring last week, is re-joining the Philadelphia 76ers.
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Oh my. Look! People came to the party!
Welcome. Dip is over there. We also have Fresca.
And if there is information you wish to share about the creative process, you can email it to me at johnmoe@hotmail.com.
And thank you.
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Malkmus as non-singer
I was walking in to work and Stephen Malkmus’s “Jenny and the Ess-Dog” came up on shuffle. Why, I wondered, is there such a unique and forceful quality to Malkmus’s vocals? Here’s an excerpt from a New York rock blog interview circa 1999:
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Malkmus: (Laughs) I don’t even think my voice is really good.
NY Rock: That’s an odd statement coming from a singer…
Malkmus: A good voice isn’t so important. It’s more important to sound really unique. We need more singers like PJ Harvey or Shirley Manson, Dylan or Lou Reed. They really got their own cool style. I believe everybody can sing. You just need to find a way to make your voice correspond with the song. Basically, that’s it.
Lou Reed is something like a personal favorite of mine, but you could always put me into that drawer of singers who can’t really sing, who speak their songs.
NY Rock: They’re usually the voices that really grip you…
Malkmus: That’s right. If a voice is just too nice, without an edge, it kinda all flows by. You forget it. You don’t listen to the lyrics. But yeah, it took me a while to see it like that…
NY Rock: So why did you decide to sing?
Malkmus: I never decided to start singing, to be a singer. Well, yeah, I sang to some songs on the radio or in the shower. When I started to play in bands they needed a singer, so I sang and became a singer. I really do think everybody can sing.
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And here’s the video of that song I was telling you about.
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The A-11 Offense
Creativity in high school football as told by reporter/genius Roman Mars on my old radio show, Weekend America. See, this is what creativity is: you have a situation, you have limitations, you have resources, you have brains and heart.
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