Doctor of Thinkology: craft

1/30/2016

I'm a Punk

huge and very impressive escalator in Copenhagen.

I went to the Freer Gallery to see the Sōtatsu exhibit today.

Here's my compressed 411 for you: Some 400 years ago in Japan, this guy, Sōtatsu, was an amazing artist and craftsman. He decorated papers and fans and told stories with ink and paint and foils. He did prints for poetry scrolls and made beautiful panels. He used the medium like nobody else and influenced eastern art. All the credit went to his collaborators and students. He disappeared for centuries.

My point isn't about his struggles. He did okay for himself. My point is that he was a master. He was able to accomplish masterpieces because he worked on his craft. He was great and memorable for hundreds of years because he worked to learn. He experimented, refined and improved his art.

So here I am tonight, slogging and slurring through post number 30. I'm writing because I am faux-working at my craft. Really, though, I'm just a punk. I'm writing without the care and effort and path to improvement of Sōtatsu and his disciples. I'm just putting a notch in the gun. X'ing today on the calendar. Did it. Done!

I still believe that forcing myself to write every day makes me a better writer. At least it makes me faster. But to really be better, I need to focus on making my actual work better. I've been publishing and moving on, when I would learn more by going back, editing refining and reflecting, and maybe throwing some away.

This is a raw idea and I promise (myself) that I will return to this tomorrow. I need to get on an escalator to improvement rather than the moving walkway that drives me across the same level.

Thank you Sōtatsu for tweaking this punk.

Inspiration.

1/26/2016

Post 26-2016: Harry Potter Is Dead

Daniel Radcliffe playing ping pong and answering 73 questions

Okay, Harry Potter is not dead, especially in that is a fictional character. The actor that was Harry Potter, though, is a corpse in a new movie at Sundance.

There was some noise made about people walking out because of the noise made by the corpse, whom Daniel Radcliffe (nee Harry Potter) played, made.

So making a long story short (and I did not see the film but the Spouse did), the actor who many of us know as Harry Potter played a slightly animated dead man who performed as a jet ski propelled by his dead man farts and steered by his erection.

Yes. Just what I said.

I am so delighted that Mr. Radcliffe, formerly of Harry Potter fame, stretches his fans (and likely turns away fans) by playing difficult to understand roles. Frankly, he could just pull in the residuals from his childhood fame. He could do a reality TV show. He could go to Harry Potter conventions. But he does not.

Instead he is working on his craft. He is an actor. And he has said he has done poor work And he challenged himself and audiences working totally exposed on stage.

Now, it seems, he is doing what he wants to do to be a better actor. I think all of us can learn from him--to not sit on your best early work but to challenge ourselves and make fools of ourselves and do good work and not such good work.

I like this reincarnated Harry Potter.