This One Is For The Makers

I want to talk a little bit about possibly the best artistic advice I have ever gotten.  Adam Savage, in a YouTube video posted by Tested.com*, talked about balancing work, his family, and his projects.  The solution for finding more time for projects, it turned out, was more about frequency than duration.  He advocates spending an hour a day in your studio/workspace, even if all you are doing is eating lunch and existing in the same space as your work.

Obviously, committing an hour a day would be difficult for many people.  The house needs to be cleaned; you brought work home with you; you can't leave the kids alone.  But what about a commitment to spending ten minutes a day in the area you have cordoned off for making whatever it is you make? I believe it really is frequency that matters.

I like this approach for several reasons. Instead of committing to finishing projects or spending lots of time in your studio, you commit to thinking about your art, looking at it, and giving yourself the opportunity to do some work if you feel up to it. Giving yourself permission to be in your space without forcing yourself to produce removes the guilt artists feel that they should always be making more.

In this way, you can structure your creative time like a workout regimen. Ten minutes a day comes easy, so you gradually up the time, until you are exceeding Adam Savage's hour goal.

Space is as important as time. Experts say bedrooms should be devoid of things that rob our sleep, like televisions and computers.  Your workspace should be a dedicated space, ideally with walls between it and dirty dishes, laundry, and other major distractions of adult life. There is a time to be responsible; take ten minutes to be creative.

If I told myself I should just organize my art room and get it over with, I would never do it. Cleaning for cleaning's sake as never come easy to me. But organization to solve problems, like "I can't find my sewing kit," seems to just happen naturally as I use a space.

Spending time in my downstairs room/art studio has allowed me to organize it for better productivity. As a result, I have created twice as much in the past few weeks as I have in the previous six months. And I feel good about continuing to use the space, because there is no pressure to create. I go there to be. I create because the tools are at hand, the space is inviting, and because I am, to some extent, an artist.

Now if only I could find a method that increased my writing output…

*I'd link to the video, but I'd never be able to find the right one. Check out Tested on Youtube and you'll see what I mean. 

Love Languages, Singlehood, and John Green

Words, time, gifts, service, touch.  Anybody who has been exposed to any pop-psy-self-help knows that those are the five love languages. Obviously, you figure which way you show love and how your spouse shows love, and voila! you get a better marriage. You don't even need to read the book.

Here's where I get in trouble, because I haven't read the book. However, I looked at the table of contents on Amazon, which like any self-help book is a straight forward outline of the material, so I will presume to comment on that material.

Whenever I see a love language quiz online, or hear people talk about the book, it is always in the context of how that person expresses love.  Simply, I give you gifts; you do the dishes. Now I know that you doing the dishes means you love me, or now you know that since gifts is my love language, you mix up dishes routine with some flowers and candy occasionally.  And like all self-help*, I find these conclusions pat and simplistic.

Complaint the first: My church is doing a love languages series for married couples and parents (those are the 2 versions of the book out there). I am single and childless, and yet I love and could learn to love better.  Aren't Christians commanded to love one another? I am not against classes for parents or couples, but it would be so very, very easy to make a class on love all inclusive. Shouldn't love be inclusive? Apparently, the class is also for people about to be married or planning to get married one day. I planned to have my first kiss before age 25, but life didn't work out that way. I refuse to plan to be married before I am engaged. This is not meant as an indictment against my church, but an illustration of common attitudes about love and singleness.

Complaint the second: Author John Green exhorts his YouTube followers to "imagine others complexly."  Love languages, as best I can guess, are meant to be a tool to help better understand the person you are trying to love.  They are not something taught in Psych 101 textbooks.  I would be interested to see studies of the dispersion of love languages on an introversion/extroversion spectrum or masculine/feminine values or stereotypes. Because our non-verbal communication is as every bit as complex as our psychological selves.

Take me for example.  I gift. Bringing joy to others through a well-thought gift is better than getting gifts.  So much so, that gifts I receive have to have a certain element of aptness and demonstrate the giver's knowledge of myself before I feel much in response. Does that make gifts my love language?

Recently, I realized that by showing love through gifts, carefully selected and wrapped, that I am holding others at arms length and passing my love over through objects. Those gifts may be appreciated, but I am holding back. One of the first things friends learn about me is that I don't touch new people. It takes an average of three months of contact with a new person before they can receive a hug. Allowing hugs is a rite of initiation into a closer circle of friendship. Does that mean touch is not my love language?

I would say that everyone has the capacity to understand how each of the love languages is an expression of love. I also believe that everyone shows love differently to different people.  My problem is expressing and receiving love in such a way that the other person can feel the exchange.

Because I'm not good at emotional shorthand. I make very bad first impressions. Ask people who have interviewed me for jobs. I get total strangers telling me to smile more.  I may have been completely content or having a horrible day, they can't tell the difference and want me to greet society in a more acceptable way no matter how I feel.  Friends still getting to know me have a hard time knowing whether I am enjoying myself at an event.

So, in the interest of imaging other more complexly, allow me to imagine myself more complexly for you.

I withdrew into myself a lot after splitting 7 weeks between ICU and a burn ward at the age of five. And I was predisposed by nature and nurture to be an introvert before that event. With whatever accompanying psychological issues from my injury, I didn't manage any kind of social competency until college.  Navigating my teen years with a sense of isolation (albeit largely of my own making) resulted in the arms-length love expressions and circles of trust that require years to enter.  This isolation  also developed a self-reliance I might not otherwise have.

My lack of trust ranks how I express love; the more I trust you the closer I allow you to come.  Gifts are farthest out,  then time and service.  Words are second only to touch because verbal expression of intimacy is only less difficult than a physical expression.

My sense of self-worth, however, ranks how much I value expressions of love that I receive.  Gifts are last again, because it is easier to give money than time.  Touch from others is valuable, but I recognize that if it is not as difficult for you as it is for me then touch becomes less precious. Words I value but have a hard time trusting from the experience of person after person telling me want to build a relationship (usually a friendship) then utterly disappearing almost immediately.  Time ranks highly because inclusion is so important to me. The idea of someone doing something to help me out is so rare that it remains an ever elusive prize.  But in any case, just being thought of is immensely gratifying.

All of which makes me sound incredibly high maintenance, but I would argue most people could create similar hierarchies. Doing so allows me to realize and accept how I relate to people and to challenge myself to find more effective modes of expression.

So, you tell me. What's my love language?

*He's Just Not That Into You is the sole exception and the best relationship book in existence.

The Slow Art Movement

There's a trend I've been noticing in the past few years, but only recently linked the isolated incidents together in my mind.  I've named it the Slow Art Movement.  It starts with Alton Brown.

I love Alton Brown. I love that he is an educated southerner; that he got a culinary degree in order to make a better cooking show; that he writes, directs, and acts in the shows he creates; that after 14 seasons of Good Eats, he decided to stop in order to have time for other projects; that his first degree was in theatre.  I really love that his first degree was in theatre.

As I've written before about Steve Franks, I admire the independent spirit that allows a single person to take on multiple roles in a successful cable TV show.  And I also admire the actors, directors, and crew people who produce short series for the internet. A lot of these people participate in the Slow Art Movement. Alton Brown falls into both categories.

The Slow Art Movement is one end of the spectrum that has CGI at the other end.  It's the Rube Goldberg machine of entertainment. And while you can extend the Movement to include a lot of makers and even Makers, the most obvious influence in entertainment is theatre.

For decades, theatre has been co-opting film techniques, to varying success. However, recently I've been noticing entertainers outside of theatre have been adapting theatrical techniques.  Actors have always "gone back" to theatre in order to develop their skill (or prove it), so it is very gratifying to see technicians doing the same.

On Good Eats, all effects were practical (baring limited use of green screen) and very low budget. The conceit of the show was to have everything (puppets and props, etc) look homemade, which worked because they were. Rapid set changes (like in the Old Spice commercials) were shot in real time, with set pieces tracking in and out of camera shots. Sounds like summerstock.

Alton Brown and Mythbusters' Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman have developed themed variety shows that they tour around the country.  Other shows, like w00tstock, combine musicians, comedians, storytellers, and other entertainers for more generalized variety shows.  Storytelling has replaced poetry slams as avant grade entertainment.

This is a entertainment specific detailing of a return to old practices that can be found almost everywhere you look.  The same college students up all night playing MMOs can be found knitting in dorm lobbies during the day.  I have long said that Americans need to be intentional about the culture, traditions, and heritage we choose to cultivate as a society.  I think that Slow Art is the perfect place to start. 

The Lego Movie: Two Readings

Yeah, thematic discussion, therefore: SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS!

The Conflict of Interest Reading

The Lego Movie is a fun, quick-paced romp with an uncertain moral. The movie is bogged down by the conflict between wanting to tell a story about an evil corporation taken down by the little guy when the storytellers are in fact on the side of the villain.  Pitting teamwork and rule-following against individual achievement is a problematic theme to present to children, unless you want them to see their teachers and parents as the bad guys.  The convention switch 2/3 of the way in is too abrupt and makes the search for a moral even more muddied.  The climax of the movie attempts to solve the thematic problems with a sort of "work together to do whatever you want" attitude.  The conclusion of the moral "Everyone is the Special" is no better or more revealing than "Everything is awesome." The movie boils down to being a nostalgia vehicle for the viewers old enough to carry credit cards.


The Unreliable Narrator Reading

To understand The Lego Movie, you have to look at it from the perspective of Finn as storyteller.  Apparently conflicting themes, derivative story arcs mashed together, and a general sense of naiveté about societal structures pervade the film because the story is the product of the mind of a young boy.  Children's logic, only a step away from dream logic is the ideal framework for a movie about legos. And the prevailing themes are surprisingly sophisticated. The real world presents a fully-fleshed struggle of a father who must discover that the best way to recapture his childhood is by connecting with his son.  The implicit theme of the lego world by the climax of the movie is one of teamwork through creativity and flexible thinking.  The idea that you make your own destiny was perhaps underdeveloped when reduced to the trite "Everyone is the Special," but an overly elegant moral would contradict the convention that the story is being told by a child.


Which is the better interpretation? I probably fall somewhere in-between the two (and need to re-watch to see if I missed anything thematically).

A Love Letter to Psych

USA announced that Psych will be cancelled in its 8th season. During, mind you, not after. And with no real advance notice to the producers and writers. I greeted this information with sadness but not shock.

For the first 3 seasons or so, I was the only person I knew who watched Psych. I loved it enough to buy seasons as they came out, rather than my traditional wait-six-months-and-pay-half-price route.  I watched all the commentaries. I looked for pineapples. I have the Psych refrigerator poetry set. So I never quite understood why it took people so long to catch on to how amazing this series is. 

Psych has only been nominated for 1 Emmy (for original score, 2010) and has only won 1 People's Choice Award (Favorite Cable TV Comedy, 2014!).  So, except for—apparently—this year, neither critics nor viewers thought much of this plucky show. 

In a television age of overstated pathos and passion, Psych is an ode to the music, movies and television shows that brought joy and fun to our lives. From episode themes (See: Dual Spires) to guest stars (Ally Sheedy, Cary Elwes, and William Shatner) to character names (a character named Jason in the Friday the 13th ep. "Tuesday the 17th"), Psych was devoted to reminding its viewers that it's ok to acknowledge those who came before and to build on them.  

I don't understand why Psych occasionally gets billed as a drama. Psych was always intended to be a comedy along the lines of Moonlighting and Remington Steele. Like Moonlighting, Psych is more romantic comedy than crime-solving drama, however, the central relationship is a friendship of the highest order.  Having sexual tension play a secondary role to fun-loving characters who constantly get in over their heads (wow, just realized the similarities to Scooby-doo) means that no character's dating life is allowed to high-jack the show.  

Psych stays true to its message: the joys and consequences of irresponsibility and making light of the serious.  Beyond the characters, the independent and silly nature of the show can be found from the top down.  Steve Franks is the creator, producer, director, writer, and composer AND performer of the show's theme song.  This is a guy that my generation would expect to find making a web series, not 8 seasons of cable TV (because nobody does everything in the corporate world). 

Everyone talks about the amount of improv in shows featuring former SNL stars.  No one talks about how Psych scripts include lines like "/angry whisper fight/" or that every button of a scene with James Roday is the funniest take of him talking until the cameras stop rolling.  What other show would resurrect an outtake of an improved line at the end of a scene (thus cutting something else) and turn it into the icon of the entire series?  

What other show would quote movies so obscure that they feel compelled to explain what was quoted in the commentaries? (But only the truly obscure ones.)

What show would reference popular products regardless of sponsorship? (Then end up getting sponsorship in a burst of serendipity.)

What show could get away with openly mocking another show on a different network as being a blatant rip off? "'If I were a fake psychic, it would be eerily similar. ' 'Exactly the same' 'A virtual carbon copy.'"

And of course, what other show would have a pregnant interim police chief, a feline witness, a tap-dancing detective, an apartment in a dry cleaning store, a falsely accused polar bear, a lovable-yet-creepy mortician, even more lovable criminals, and of course a fake psychic detective?

No other show. Psych stands alone.

My Favorite Movie: Thoughts on strong female characters

This post is coming from a lot of places:

From watching Amanda Palmer sing on YouTube about one of her influences that she had previously overlooked when being interviewed. (NSFW due to some language)

From reading and listening to discussions about Joss Whedon and his strong female characters.

From reading an article that, among other things, claims that readers get more invested in characters than movie goers.

And from other articles that worry about our expectations and our attitudes toward young girls.

From the inability of the vast majority of people online to be able to use critical thinking when it comes to sensationalism.

From a friend on Facebook wanting to know what book to read this winter.

And from loving friends who gave me the gift of a new life motto thru a tee-shirt.


It would be difficult to say which book (or movie, or what-have-you) has influenced me the most.  Few things are truly earth-shattering in a good way. (I can tell you much more easily the books or movies that traumatized me most.) But when I think specifically on what moment shaped the person I have become in the most positive way, I suddenly have an answer. It was fourth grade, I was at my desk, and instead of listening to the lesson (let's pretend it was math), I was reading a book under my desk. For the record, the book was on the optional reading list, so it was something I was supposed to have with me (sort of). Just not at that moment (sorry, Mrs. Weathers). The problem I was having was that for the first time in my life I was reading a book that I couldn't put down.  I remember in early elementary school being more concerned with my conduct grades than actual subjects. I think my love-of-reading epiphany was a major factor in how my attitude toward learning evolved.  Math suffered, to be sure, due to the novels hiding in every text book every time I should have been doing homework.

As a person with two degrees in pretend, I can attest to how narrative can create empathy in audiences. As a consumer of media, I can admit to crying, laughing, or cheering when watching or reading something that particularly resonates with me.  As a creator, I know that if something does not resonate it will not last.  As a kid who was, quite frankly, unable to cope with her peers on a social level, I can attest to the power of what we sometimes derisively call escapism.

Amanda Palmer wrote her song about author Judy Blume. Strong female characters have been an endless discussion in the world of film (especially SciFi).  And most people I know will bemoan that child-centered programming is not what it once was, female characters or not.  Amanda reminds me that those characters we wish for on-screen are out there already.

I am interested in the idea that books are more effective forms of immersion that movies. The human imagination is more powerful than IMAX 3D.  Time constraints are not an issue. And, fortunately for us all, the people writing books are not the studio execs who care most about the bottom line. I am always dismayed when an analysis of a movie picks apart certain details or themes that were addressed differently in the book.  Because to me, the movie is a visual aid and the book is the substance.  In books, characters are free to be ugly or flawed or weak or human in ways that we deny on-screen characters.

The book that changed me forever in fourth grade was A Wrinkle in Time.  Meg was ugly, unpopular, stymied in school, and at the end of the book, none of those things really changed. What changed was that she learned reliance on herself and others, acknowledged her good qualities and accepted her poor ones.  Let's just say the made-for-TV movie misses the mark.

If I wanted to give a child a tool that would help provide emotional support, improve her grades, encourage creative thinking, and give her an opportunity to practice decision making and responsibility, I would give her a library card.

I believe that if you find the right preparation, anyone can like any vegetable.  I believe there are quality books out there for all tastes and levels.  Don't tell me you don't like to read when you were camped in front of a bookstore waiting for the release of the next Harry Potter.

Hollywood has a problem with an accurate portrayal of what it means (and should mean) to be female.  I firmly believe the answer to this is books.

For my birthday this year, my friends bought me a shirt which says:

My favorite movie is books. 

Douglas Adams' Spinoffs and Spoilers

If you haven't read Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency, be warned this post will contain spoilers.

Dirk Gentley is one of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors. Recently, after coming across websites that provide suggestions on 'what to read next after finishing a book', I had considered doing something similar for 'what to read after watching this show/movie.'  Like Downton Abbey? Try reading Wodehouse. Like Dr. Who, read The Hitchhiker's Guide. I never thought to recommend Dirk Gentley, because Hitchhiker's Guide has more mass appeal. Which is ironic because…

Recently I was browsing a bookstore and stumbled on a new Douglas Adams book.  Doctor Who: Shada, The Lost Adventure by Douglas Adams, by Gareth Roberts (another Dr. Who writer).  Most Whovians (I am not one except casually) know that Douglas Adams wrote for the original series.  Of the 3 episodes, one did not air due to a writers' strike. It was later released on video with Tom Baker narrating to fill in the gaps of what didn't get filmed.

I am vaguely aware of other Dr. Who novels, particularly between the old and new series, that are not considered cannon.  Then there is that new collection of short stories.  This is different. This is a Tom Baker adventure, written by the man who conceived the babelfish as an actual episode meant to air, and revised, finished, and polished by another Dr. Who writer. Besides, how long has it been since the world had seen something new published that was written by Douglas Adams. These facts alone were exciting enough.  But there was an additional surprise…

Douglas Adams, like many writers, recycles ideas in his various works. The true-life story of the biscuits made its way into HH2G.  He also had plans to revise the third Dirk Gentley book, The Salmon of Doubt, into a sixth Hitchhiker's book.  So it should come as no surprise that he had a hard time letting Shada go.

The Dirk Gentley books, as a series, are disjointed. The third is unfinished, the second is mythic (and doesn't seem to fit with anything else he wrote, IMHO), and the first has strange plot holes.

In the first book, understanding the plot requires a decent knowledge of Coleridge. (If Malcolm Reynolds can read a poem, you can too.)  But the backstory and mechanics of how you get to the point of needing English Lit to understand the resolution was shrouded in mystery.

SPOILERS: There's this Cambridge professor and his flat is a time machine. He doesn't know how old he is, or how he ended up living in a time machine, or even how the machine works, exactly. He admits once that he "retired" to Cambridge, but that is about all he can remember.

So, sure there's a time machine with an impossibly old dude living in it, but that does't mean he's a Time Lord. There are, after all, lots of time travel stories, including Hitchhiker's Guide (i.e. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe).  But Dirk Gentley isn't just another time travel story.

The professor's name is Chronotis.  And he is a major character, and Time Lord, in Shada.

One of my favorite books is a Dr. Who spinoff and I didn't know. 

Shada is great. Gareth Roberts captures Adams' voice in the way you wish Eoin Colfer had. The book is a cultural window to 1970s SciFi, without the bad special effects.

I'm only left with one question.

Is the Professor still in Cambridge?