Red Boots

Thanks to Keane, some shots of my famous-in-my-own-mind red boots. Ah, love them!

Creativity is never a single act

Our students quickly learned that creativity is never a single act. Creativity is always a lengthy process requiring huge amounts of preparation and persistence. As counter-example to the Mozart myth, they learned that Beethoven filled notebook after notebook with musical dead ends and futile variations in painstaking composition. They considered that the lack of documented trial-and-error for Mozart didn't necessarily mean that he didn't struggle, too, though in his case those struggles seem to have taken place in his head rather than on paper.

-Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein, Psychology Today blog "Teaching Creativity 2"

The gig, the gig

Well, last night was our gig. In preparation, yesterday I went out and bought myself a patch cord and a guitar stand. Oddly, I still don’t own a tuner.

We had a practice the night before that turned into a bit of a ‘pre-party’. You know that’s the only reason we’re in a band. It’s an excuse to party... In my case, it’s my social life.

We had a great time last night playing music and I just want to thank the EIGHTY people who came - omg - we now have some money to put towards a good cause, as in, making our band even awesomer. We fantasize about cordless mics... cordless guitars... headsets! There's this one song where I really want to writhe around on the floor, but it's hard when you're tied down with cords.

In a little bit, I should have some photos and possibly videos from the show to either post here or point you to... What a party. Like I said, when your 'work' is making music, you can justify all kinds of things...

• buying clothes that others might consider to be cheesy, cheap, and/or slutty (viz. My red high-heeled fake snakeskin boots, $7.99 at St Vincent de Paul)
• going out to shows and catching great acts around town (research)
  
• drinking on a weeknight (that's week-night)

Hey, I know some of my readers are in bands too – can you add to the list?

Yes! Waiting for the upside...

"A penchant for postponement takes its toll. Procrastination carries a financial penalty, endangers health, harms relationships and ends careers. “Procrastination undermines well-being on a wide scale,” notes psychologist Timothy A. Pychyl, director of the Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University in Ottawa. Nevertheless, recent work hints at potential upsides to this otherwise bad habit: perpetual foot-draggers seem to benefit emotionally from their trademark tactics, which support the human inclination to avoid the disagreeable." [emphasis added - jg]

from a scientific american article I linked to via the learned and helpful David Scrimshaw