Continue reading »]]> I generally dislike all forms of ‘how to be creative’ or ‘how to be productive’ or ‘five secrets to success in the arts.’ Worse than useless, these things are indicative of an output fetish. A fixation on the factory floor. A jumped up, capitalist pornography for the creative classes.

But you can make a good living selling this stuff.

When I do bother with it, which is rarely, I like to hear the thoughts of people whose primary occupation is anything other than producing a series of posts, books or lectures on how to produce things. Or, as I like to think of it, thin gruel.

John Cleese is, of course, such a fellow. Here is his speech on how to be creative.

It’s a pretty decent one (as such things go) and he emphasizes a few things that I find to be both funny and accurate: That is, the importance of play and time. Also, the light approach needed to approach problems in a creative way. Then the dedication to see the solutions through.

I also like the notion of intermediate impossibilities. Had I known of that concept when I named this blog, it’d probably be called that. It’s basically what I mean when I call this a notebook.

Via Zoetica Ebb

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I saw this photo essay by Simon Wheatley (before clicking – be aware of your volume – autoplaying music!) years ago, when grime was both late and current and what I was listening to. Looked for it a while back but couldn’t find it then just bumped into it today.

I’ve embedded it but, because it contains automatically playing music, put it after the jump. Adjust your volumes and enjoy. It’s interesting.