he's fucking brilliant. he's who i want to be when i grow up, except that i'm 60 and don't have a chance in hell of being him, being like him, or growing up.
he has pushed every edge he's ever met.
he's gone places, artistically, musically, that a mere mortal like me can't begin to figure
out how he got there, much less how he got back. no, wait, he didn't come back, he just kept on going. over the edge and through the woods.
not that i would take the same trip. aw, shit, who am i kidding? of course i would.
i think he's one of the most creative people on the planet.
even when i don't like his stuff, i like his stuff.
he's married to kathleen brennan, a brilliant, creative woman. dammit.
he has kids. can you imagine having tom waits as a father?
that's like having frank zappa as a father.
and we thought our parents were weird.
i'm saying all this because i watched this ted talk by elizabeth gilbert. (she wrote "eat, pray, love", of which i am not particularly fond.) she is speaking about creativity, and mentions tom waits, whom she has interviewed. that made me think better of her. plus, she's kinda funny. i've had experiences similar to that which she describes, especially of late during this poem-a-day quagmire i find myself hip deep in. her resolution (and tom's) has relieved me of an onerous burden. for that i am grateful.
so when you get stuck, mired in the morass of mediocrity, remember this:
I'm sorry, but I could only watch about a third of that video before I switched it off. Elisabeth Gilbert seems like a very nice woman, and whoever Ted is I hope he's treating her well, but her problems are not my problems. While I like to think of myself as a creative person, it's never been my day job, unfortunately, and that's the nub of MY problem. When she quoted Norman Mailer about every book taking a little out of him, and then asked if that's all right with everybody, I felt like shouting "YES! YES! IT'S ALL RIGHT WITH ME!!" If I can devote most of my time to writing, hell, let it take a little out of me. Our cells die off as we get older anyway. When she asked if that's the road artists really want to go down, I felt like like shouting "FILl UP THE TANK AND LET'S GET GOING!!" Better than spinning your wheels in one place. Torturued artist? Hey, I'll take that over being a tortured WANNABE artist any day of the week. Call me a glutton for punishment.
ReplyDeleteDon't know much about Tom Waits. Are there any albums or songs by him you can recommend?
kirk, i get it. the better stuff comes later in the video, unfortunately. i suspect that those for whom their creativity is their day job confront different challenges than the rest of us. norman mailer was killed a little with each book. he wrote full time, so that's a lot of killing. how do you deal with the fact that what you love to do, are driven to do, is also killing you?
ReplyDeletethat requires a fearlessness that i don't know that i have.
flip side, i don't think i, or you, are spinning our wheels. we are gluttons for punishment. we, like wallace stevens, have our day jobs, and pursue our passions in the off time. or the on time. whichever, we are not wannabes. we keep doing it.
which reminds me, i have to go write another shit poem.
thanks for stopping by.
kirk, i forgot to say: tom waits is an acquired taste. his early works are more approachable. heart of saturday night, small change...this is one of my favorites,from his later stuff-
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GugzLSbOQE
I'll watch the rest of the video Monday. Part of the problem here is I have limited time on the Internet during the weekend, and thus bailed out once I assumed I knew where it was headed. You know what Felix Ungar said about assuming things.
DeleteOK, I watched the rest of it, and it was interesting. I just think I'd be more receptive to it if I didn't always have to find time to squeeze in my creativty, as I've had to for most of my life. Maybe I'm just jealous of her. I mean, in my view, not knowing how to follow up a big success is a GOOD problem to have.
DeleteIf you to my blogroll, you'll see a blog called The Truth About Lies. About two weeks ago there was a post titled "Imagine: How Creativity Works" which talks about a lot of the same things as Ms. Gilbert does. I think you'll find it interesting. Yours truly makes an appearance in the comment section (don't worry. That not the interesting thing I'm referring to.)
i know what you mean about squeezing in creativity. it becomes "be creative NOW." for me, it takes time to shift mindsets, and by the time i've done it, it's time to go back to work. then again, i don't work well with a lot of unstructured time, so maybe it's just as well that i have time limits!
DeleteOle! Many things running through my mind watching this. First, Richard Bach described that overwhelming moment of creativity in writing Jonathan Livingston Seagull. In the Nature of Personal Reality (a Seth book) Jane Roberts (as Seth) talks about the scope of the universe being infinite in both the physical and spiritual realm. The interior and exterior in a sense with Ego acting as the lens through which these realms interact. In my previous blog small talk with god I had those moments when I felt that something that was not I came through and communicated. Unfortunately it was not particularly reliable. As for something being commercially successful that's pretty much out there in the spiritual realm as well,, a good idea coming just at the moment it's needed within the right conditions for success. I really dislike the artists whose approach is formulaic, just repeating themselves ad nauseum. Which brings me finally to Tom Waits who has managed to avoid this throughout his career. Thanks rraine, lots of interesting thoughts between you, Kirk and Ms Gilbert.
ReplyDeletemike-boy, this post sure has sparked some interest! yay! check out kirk's link in his comment below, it's wonderful.
Deletei've had the experience of communicating something that was, indeed, coming through me, rather than being generated by me. my challenge has always been, and continues to be, to get the hell out of the way! oh yeah, and write it down immediately.
http://jim-murdoch.blogspot.com/2012/04/imagine-how-creativity-works.html
ReplyDeleteI know it's lengthy, and you, or Mike for that matter, may not have the time to read it, but it is pretty interesting.
kirk-i can't thank you enough for this link. that book is so right up my brain alley! i'm getting it, pronto. much of what it talks about i've seen in other places, but i've not seen it all brought together like this.
Deletei've read jim murdoch's comments on other blogs, and truthfully, didn't find much in them to relate to. this review, however, is wonderful.
I just started the first chapter Of Imagine: That chapter is available on amazon. What I've read so far has decided me to pursue a copy but I'm trying the library first. I apprecite the scientific viewpoint of Jonah Lerner but still I putt that creativity in the spiritual realm which to me may include the Jung's collective unconscious. I found it interesting that in describing the creation of swiffer, Lerner found that the first step was to clear the mind of preconceived notions to open up to inspiration. This is also the goal of Buddhist practice and Daoism. I like the way our interests tie together. Great discussion rraine.
ReplyDeletemike, i was going to go the library route as well, but i know i wouldn't be able to finish it before it was due back. i'm leaning towards believing that there is no distinction between the spiritual realm and anything else. our limited, dualistic language leads us to either/or, yes/no, 0/1. i often find that i lack the vocabulary to describe certain experiences. poetry (by others, not me) can sometimes do that in such a way as to convey the wholeness of an experience.
Deleteand yeah, i'm loving this discussion!
As an agnostic, I'm not going to take a position on whether creativity comes from within or without, other than to say one reason, the primary reason, why I always back away from spiritual explanations for anything is my morbid Fear of Disappointment.
DeleteBut this all got me thinking about Elizabeth Gilbert's little lecture. She seems to think the reason modern-day artists are tortured has to do with the modern-day belief that creativity comes from within. When an artist believes the inner well has run dry, they become depressed and commit suicide. But why couldn't the other way also cause depression? If you thought the God of Creativity was visiting you on a regular basis and helping you write critically acclaimed and commercially successful works of art, and then suddenly, that God stopped visiting you, wouldn't THAT make you depressed? And how is she so sure there were no tortured artists in antiquity? The lives of the ancient poets and playwrights and philosophers are not all that well documented. Nobody even knows if there really was Homer! (Though, of course, somebody had to think up the Illiad and the Odyssey. Just not necessarily a blind man) Even Socretes is thought by some to have been made up by Plato. With such scant knowledge, how does anyone know some of these ancient creators weren't commiting suicide? Or at least getting drunk a lot?
As a side note to this discussion I was chatting with the piper at the Braco gazing. I asked him if his performance was all improv which led to a discussion of jazz improv and where that creativeness comes from. he attributed it to an energy field we are all tapped into to a greater or lesser degree. I asked if it was from the head or the heart and he answered "The gut"
ReplyDeletei tend to think it's a combination of all three. it's like dancing, sometimes one leads, sometimes the other.
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