Or, why it's easy to find the time for creation when you don't watch TV.

That's a bit flip, but this talk by Clay Shirky does point out the amazing resources we have at our disposal (on an individual and cultural level) when we make conscious choices about how to spend time.

Money quote: "Media that is targeted at you but that doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for."

I gave up cable over 12 years ago, and with rare exceptions, have not looked back. I watch a little TV on DVD, but making things & having interactive experiences seems so much more fun that I don't miss it too much. One thing I wish Shirky had addressed a little more, though, was the extent to which other passive activities (reading blogs, watching YouTube) has taken the place of TV without increasing participation. It's my particular blind spot, and one I'm trying to address as my time becomes more compressed.

So, how would you like to spend your time?

Posted at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Found on MetaFilter this morning: Eclectic 2.0 [requires QuickTime]. I have a thing for time-lapse photography and reverse video (see also Sensei Studios, their "Balancing Point" video is amazing), and this piece really took my breath away.

Posted at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Disclaimer: Not the official entry for this week (official entries will all be found under the 'School' category, for those who are playing along at home).

Now, then. (And what an odd turn of phrase that is, by the way...suggesting a conflation of past & present that feels very familiar.) Since I have a dreadfully long commute (45-60 minutes each way), I spend a lot of time in the car with my iPod. Goddess bless the podcast revolution, because as much as I love music, and that's a lot, having whole radio shows and other interesting intellectual tidbits to listen to during that time has (I firmly believe) saved my mind from becoming some kind of grayish polenta. So, since in the vernacular of The Tipping Point I'm a Maven who loves to share information, here are a couple of great, mythologically-relevant podcasts I'd recommend.

• Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason – Six episodes. I think this ran on PBS TV a couple of years back. They have streaming video of all of the interviews as well as downloadable audio, and what interviews! Jeanette Winterson on Atlas and the Old Testament, Will Power on translating Oedipus to hip-hop, Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood on the stories of religion....and a bunch more.
• Radio Lab – I mentioned this one a few posts back, and it's rapidly become one of my favorites. While the show deals with ostensibly science-related topics (a lot of neurology in particular), there is always a strong sense of humanity and story. The series is ongoing, and I'd highly recommend a few shows in particular to get you started: Sleep, Memory and Forgetting, and The Ring and I.

And that's all I've got for tonight. Back to the books!

Posted at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Danny Gregory is one of my current favorite authors. He's one of several (including Dan Price) who have written deeply on the joy of drawing and journalling, with a special eye toward those like me who think they don't know how to draw. He posted the following list of creative commandments the other day, and it pretty much sums up the kind of creative person I'd like to be.

• Thou shall not be afraid of making things.
• Thou shall not erase. Well, not too often.
• Thou ought to keep a journal of your life and draw the stuff that strikes you as cool and make little notes next to it and stuff.
• Thou shall not not play around.
• Thou shall not cover they neighbor's art work as thine own.
• Thou shall remind other people that they can draw even if they think they can't.
• Thou shall not judge too harshly.
• I 8 a dead horse.
• Thou shall draw on the Sabbath, but not only on the Sabbath.
• Thou shall not make lists with more than IX things in them.

Posted at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Human nature, summed up in a filmstrip.

Posted at 01:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For fans of The Tipping Point (and if you aren't yet, you should read it), another great article from Malcolm Gladwell: "The Naked Face". If you've ever wanted to know how some people can read intent on a person's face, it's a great summary of the current psychological and physiological research.

Posted at 06:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Big movie weekend the past couple of days, from the silly to the self-absorbed to the seriously odd (Goldmember, The Kid Stays in the Picture, and Full Frontal, respectively). I almost went for a triple-feature today with Notorious C.H.O., but decided I didn't need to spent another 9 bucks on something I'd already seen live for 30. I'll save it for NetFlix. Speaking of which, NetFlix is pretty much a perfect service for someone like me who loves documentaries and director commentaries but who lives in the sticks. Blockbuster just doesn't seem to carry things like Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth for some reason…

I've been gobbling up as much of Campbell's stuff as I can recently, after buying PoM at Costco about a month ago. It was one of those PBS series I always thought I should watch, and I finally got around to reading the book a few years back, but didn't feel much drawn to the material. That has all changed. I don't know if it was my own readiness, or actually seeing Campbell deliver his own words rather than reading them (or both), but the history and structure of myth and the human need for it really struck a chord with me as I watched. I'm currently working my way through Mythos, a video series of his last lecture tour, and the Joseph Campbell Audio Collection, a set of 30 lectures from the 1960s. It's all fascinating stuff, and has added a lot both to my understanding of the human condition and to my artistic life as I dive deeper in. Highly recommended.

Posted at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)