storylab

A peaceful, quiet evening

According to an article on Newsweek, brainstorming doesn't work:

[I]t’s been proven not to work since 1958, when Yale researchers found that the technique actually reduced a team’s creative output: the same number of people generate more and better ideas separately than together. In fact, according to University of Oklahoma professor Michael Mumford, half of the commonly used techniques intended to spur creativity don’t work, or even have a negative impact. As for most commercially available creativity training, Mumford doesn’t mince words: it’s “garbage.” Whether for adults or kids, the worst of these programs focus solely on imagination exercises, expression of feelings, or imagery. They pander to an easy, unchallenging notion that all you have to do is let your natural creativity out of its shell.

The article also adds this hilarious nugget:

Almost every dimension of cognition improves from 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, and creativity is no exception. The type of exercise doesn’t matter, and the boost lasts for at least two hours afterward. However, there’s a catch: this is the case only for the physically fit. For those who rarely exercise, the fatigue from aerobic activity counteracts the short-term benefits.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/12/forget-brainstorming.html

Five-time Academy Award winning director Francis Ford Coppola predicts YouTube?

1. The Rogue Film School will be in the form of weekend seminars held by Werner Herzog in person at varying locations and at infrequent intervals. 
2. The number of participants will be limited to a maximum of 65. 
3. Locations and dates will be announced on this website and Werner Herzog's website: www.wernerherzog.com approximately 12 weeks in advance. 
4. The Rogue Film School will not teach anything technical related to filmmaking. For this purpose, please enroll at your local film school. 
5. The Rogue Film School is about a way of life. It is about a climate, the excitement that makes film possible. It will be about poetry, films, music, images, literature. 
6. The focus of the seminars will be a dialogue with Werner Herzog, in which the participants will have their voice with their projects, their questions, their aspirations. 
7. Excerpts of films will be discussed, which could include your submitted films; they may be shown and discussed as well. Depending on the materials, the attention will revolve around essential questions: how    does music function in film? How do you narrate a story? (This will certainly depart from the brainless teachings of three-act-screenplays). How do you sensitize an audience? How is space created and understood by an audience? How do you produce and edit a film? How do you create illumination and an ecstasy of truth? 
8. Related, but more practical subjects, will be the art of lock picking. Traveling on foot. The exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully. The athletic side of filmmaking. The creation of your own shooting permits. The neutralization of bureaucracy. Guerrilla tactics. Self-reliance. 
9. Censorship will be enforced. There will be no talk of shamans, of yoga classes, nutritional values, herbal teas, discovering your Boundaries, and Inner Growth. 
10. Related, but more reflective, will be a reading list. Required reading: Virgil’s “Georgics” and Ernest Hemingway’s “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”. Suggested reading: The Warren Commission Report, Rabelais’ “Gargantua and Pantagruel”, “The Poetic Edda”, translated by Lee M. Hollander (in particular The Prophecy of the Seeress), Bernal Diaz del Castillo “True History of the Conquest of New Spain”. 
11. Required film viewing list: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948, dir. John Huston), Viva Zapata (1952, dir. Elia Kazan), The Battle of Algiers (1966, dir. Gillo Pontecorvo), the Apu trilogy (1955-1959, dir. Satyajit Ray), and, if available, “Where is the Friend’s Home?” (1987, dir. Abbas Kiarostami).
12. Follow your vision. Form secretive Rogue Cells everywhere. At the same time, be not afraid of solitude.

From http://www.roguefilmschool.com/about.asp

A quick thought on digital technology: consumer fetish items such as iPhones and sites like Twitter are equally as cool and desirable and accessible for the elite as an average person.

Joe Schmoe is not wearing the same clothes, going to the same clubs, or ordering the same bottle service as Jay-Z, and yet, they own the exact same iPhone and most likely view it in similar terms. Yes, sure, everyone has to pay taxes, put his/her pants on one leg at a time, etc., but these are not desirable unifiers.

What does this mean? Should Apple create a Platinum iPhone? One encrusted in diamonds? I'd say overall it's a good thing. Although, celebrities do help to give Twitter a bad reputation by contributing their share of mundanities, except said mundanities have a far higher public profile. Maybe it would be better if they were cordoned off in their own VIP section of the digital world.

The segment below, from an episode of KCRW's The Business, covers the working methods of Lost's composer, Micheal Giacchino. It's really an excellent listen.

Skip ahead to the 19:28 mark for the section on Lost.  

The New Yorker's music critic Alex Ross also recorded a podcast on Giacchino. Unfortunately, Ross' full article is only available online to digital subscribers (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/05/17/100517fa_fact_ross).

John Williams is repeatedly mentioned in reference to Giacchino's work. I get flashes of Williams' score from Raiders--the scene where the Ark is being placed in the gigantic secret warehouse--whenever I hear Jacob's theme in Lost.

Y and I

You consume me like fire
You burn me like fire
You burn yourself
As I burn you
As I burn I
Y and I

Arenas is the most mercurial of all current NBA stars. He seems alternately fragile and fierce when faced with any adversities, challenges, or perceived and/or real slights. If and when he comes back from his suspension, I wonder if his career will ever recover.

In the future will universities continue to bid millions of dollars for an author's archives if instead of receiving boxes and boxes of papers they receive a single flash drive containing the author's entire corpus as digital files? And what would the flash drive consist of exactly? Word documents, exported emails, digital photos, links used for research? Instead of worrying about fading, moisture, mold, and pests in the papers, would the archivists worry about compatibility issues and malware?

These vagabond shoes are longing to stray . . . .