Keith Handy 1.999

Childhood vs. Adulthood (putting eyes on things)

One thing that sometimes stifles my creativity as an adult, even as an adult artist, is the ability to desire a certain thing — a certain shape, a certain color, a certain chord, a certain instrument — and hold an image in my mind until I can create an exact-as-possible expression of it. It’s great to have this power, but all the while, I’m letting a zillion little useful things float by, untapped.

When I was little, whatever happened to be in the room would become part of my art, or part of my “play”, if there’s any difference. I didn’t go searching for things. For example, I once had this discarded black trench coat with a red lining, and also one of those big “Hoppity-Hop” balls… I hung the ball from the basement ceiling and draped the bottom half of the trench coat over it, threw a scarf around the neck, and presto, instant fat-bellied ghost. In my mind it was a scene from a movie waiting to be made. I was sad when that coat was taken down and discarded, presumably by one of my parents; I’d like to find it again and re-create that character. But the artist isn’t supposed to be looking for that old coat, it’s supposed to be seeing the next thing as it comes.

Frank Zappa had a phrase, “put the eyebrows on it”, which meant to put that extra bit of attitude on a musical performance. In a way, my phrase could have been, “put the eyes on it”, because I had a tendency to see the cartoon character in the ordinary object. Whatever I had, whatever I came across, somehow the raw magic was already in it, and I was going to use it in my next movie.

Now I find myself getting stuck, getting hung up, postponing the child-like behavior until I “get this thing taken care of” or “find this piece I need”. This isn’t always a bad thing; a few weekends ago, I decided a certain spot in a piece of music ought to have a timpani line followed by a gong hit. A few Google searches, and I found some high quality samples of both timpani and gongs (neither on the sites where I expected to find them, but on the greater Internet nonetheless), and they worked beautifully. For this kind of thing, I love being an adult.

In some other areas, though, I’m letting stuff slip by. I’m neglecting useful objects because I’m not seeing the eyes on them. I’m strongly considering going to a craft store, buying a whole bunch of eyes, and just sticking them on things. This is probably what might be classified as “weird”, having eyes on all of my stuff, everywhere in the room, looking at me… but it may be the only way to re-awaken that part of my mind.

Suspension of disbelief vs. being “safe”

The term “Suspension of disbelief” usually refers to our forgiveness of contradictions and inconsistencies in fiction. We generally don’t use it when talking about abstract or experience-oriented art, such as music or animation (i.e. the animation itself, not the story). I think we should be talking about it — the audience’s willingness to experience the art, and not just see or hear it — even if we need a different term for it. As a musician for 25+ years, I haven’t come across a better term yet, so I’m sticking with SoD for now.

Without SoD, you may still get positive feedback on your work, all from people telling you that you “did a great job” and “have a lot of talent”… but never from anyone saying they were moved or affected.

SoD is audience-side, but there still needs to be an artist-side effort to facilitate the illusion for the audience. (This doesn’t necessarily mean making everything as realistic as possible; in fact, it can mean the exact opposite.)

So what responsibility does the artist have here? Here’s a tweet of mine from December:

I think most failure to enable an audience’s suspension of disbelief is not due to sloppy execution; it’s due to being too “safe”.

Safe: the guitarist who plays entirely with his fingers, and emotes nothing with his body or face. If you’re distant from your own music, then who the hell’s going to feel close to it? Safe: a recording engineer who worries more about the noise floor than the intensity or originality of the sound. Safe: the shoestring filmmaker who splurges on the best camera and lighting, but settles for passionless acting, as long as everyone gets their lines right. Safe: anyone who devotes most of his mental energy to the avoidance of mistakes. Safety is the enemy of imagination, and a lack of imagination on your own end means the SoD won’t happen won’t happen for anyone else either. If you want the audience to have an engrossing experience, you have to allow yourself to be engrossed in that experience first, which may look to some like temporary insanity.

This would seem to be an easy thing to explain to people, but sometimes it comes into conflict with deeply held values… as a result, it can fall on deaf ears. In this case you have to acknowledge that someone won’t be coming along on your journey, and just move on. Don’t let these relationships bleed you of your energy. You’ve got moving and affecting to do; get on with it.

Inner worlds and mythology

Lying on my back on the floor, headphones on, listening to a podcast in the wee hours of a weekend morning. Fully awake, yet firmly planted in the familiar inner world where this whole thing started. Not caring whether music is my music or somebody else’s music, since the distinction between “me” and “someone else” is a temporary illusion.

My attention shifts to frustration. I have the urge to share this experience, but I’ve learned that most people in this world criticize and judge in a binary, pass-or-fail way, uncomfortable with any art teetering on the fence between ethereal and half-baked. I want to put some nod to “Careful With That Axe, Eugene” in my Facebook status, but then I remember how flat and two-dimensional it will look to anyone not absorbed in the song.

I realize I’m not actually alone, by virtue of the fact that this is a podcast (and a popular one). But then I also remember how futile it is to seek meaningful human contact in the podcaster’s comments; people tend to have either a capacity to fully lose themselves in music, or the ability to write coherently — rarely both.

I realize one of the things keeping this (or any) music alive today is the mythology surrounding it. Personally, my experience of it is full without laser shows, without Wizard of Oz synchronizations, without smoking pot or adding “Shine On” to my email signature. My journey into the music is no less engrossing for having a realistic, first-hand understanding of the mundane process that goes into polishing a crude idea into a song.

For those who don’t have that experience or understanding, perhaps the mythology fills that gap. Much as I rant against it, why should I? Why fight mythology? It’s as pointless as fighting bootlegging, and has about the same effect.

I can’t think of any immediate practical use for this wisdom, so rather than trying to hammer it into the wrong-shaped hole, I’ll just let it simmer on the back brain for now.

Simplicity and complexity

It’s a treat to occasionally read something that’s at the exact right level for me. Not talking about intelligence vs. stupidity — I’m talking about where I am in a learning curve. Everything we read starts with some assumption about what we already know, and it’s nice when this assumption gets it exactly right… starting slightly lower, so that we get a quick recap of the basics, can nod our heads in agreement, and then be ready to absorb the next thing.

But, I also like to read things that are not at my level, and I will tell you why.

If something is at too low of a level — let’s say a book about the basics of using a computer — I find it fascinating to see how this information is communicated to people who don’t have that basic understanding. It’s interesting to be reminded of what knowledge I take for granted, and even think of it in a different way. And it’s also helpful to get some perspective on what goes on in the mind of a person who doesn’t understand computers, so that I might learn to communicate better with those people.

If something is at too high of a level, I still can get something out of it. Reading stuff that’s too advanced helps to plant terms in my head. It’s very much like planting seeds; if I see terms frequently enough, I get a sense of them being important somehow. And then when the time has finally come to learn the meaning of that term, there is that much more satisfaction to it, and probably more retention. Off the top of my head, I’m having trouble thinking of a current example of this, but for a past example: I’m sure I heard/read the phrase “object oriented” a zillion times before ever writing my first class. The more instances there were of me hearing/reading “object oriented” and not having a clue what it meant, the more neurons were primed to joyfully fire off once the lightbulb switched on. In other words, the more I “tortured myself” by exposing myself to the unfamiliar term, the more exciting it was to finally learn it.

When I write posts like my previous one, the reactions tend to be along the lines of “I don’t understand a word of that”. And so it might help for me to try to tie my thoughts above to your experience reading this blog… which kind of centers around whatever creative breakthrough I’m having, or trying to have, at any given moment, and then occasionally goes way off topic so I can talk about my pets, or drop my two cents into the big political conversation.

I definitely don’t write in a way that I expect any reader to completely understand every word. That might seem off-putting, as if I don’t care whether you enjoy reading this or not, but that’s absolutely not the case here! I do try to write in a way that at least amuses you between the parts that make you scratch your head, and hopefully paints some more general overview of why I’m excited about what I’m doing. You might not understand what C++ code has to do with processing video images, but hopefully you can pick up on the feeling of freedom and liberation I get from building my own tools. You might not know what a sharp-ninth chord is, but hopefully you pick up on the idea that it’s a unique sound — and ultimately a unique feeling — that you can’t get from a straight major or minor chord. (Reading about a chord is one thing… but if you hear an unusual chord and like it, there’s no excuse for not finding out what it is so you can use it in your own songs!)

While I’m apparently very good at conveying how “complex” my interests are, I might be terrible at conveying how simple they also are, at least in my head — the point where an idea comes together and finally makes sense, and becomes useful and powerful. Complexity is just a middle stage in the development of a good idea:

So if it still appears complex, then from your standpoint, I’m just not done yet. But from my standpoint, I’ve carved out this little section of code where I can do much more powerful things with the images, with very few lines of code. (And besides, I’m the one that’s going to be using the darn thing.) So, the point of my last post was, hey, I just created this tool that will help to make future toolbuilding quicker and more powerful. And I’m excited about it, and want to share that excitement.

I am NOT evangelizing that this is the path for you. I happen to have been experimenting with C++ code for audio and image manipulation since the turn of the century, was drawn into it on an emotional level (”there’s power in this stuff, I’m determined to sort it all out”, etc.), and I’ve created an ever-expanding arsenal of building blocks over that time. If you jumped into it cold, without patience or motivation — especially motivation — you would be dead stuck. The point for you is to take it as inspiration for some way in which you can create some kind of thing, system, or procedure that you will be able to benefit from, in a way that makes sense to you.

I have no idea what that would be, but I hope you make that connection.

Epilogue: Republicans

On January 27th, I posted an Open Letter to Republicans, and I think the question still holds up.

Granted, the site only gets a dozen hits or day, mostly from people looking for images to steal — but I’m sure that post was seen by at least one or two republicans. I’m sure you had ample opportunity to give me at least one rational reason to take you seriously. I told you I was undecided. I told you I’m not a member of any political party. I told you I was truly open minded, and truly listening.

I’m sure if you never saw my post, you at least came across one or two other non-republicans with a similar question or plea, essentially, “please give me some kind of counterpoint to the ideals I’m being presented with from the democratic side, so that I can weigh it and think about it objectively”. I’m sure that with all the people in the world, this question has come up somewhere, and at least one of you out there somewhere could have answered it in some form.

Instead, all we got from you was a paper bag that you had taken a shit in and set to fire, saying, “here, you stupid liberal”.

Point made, if all you ever had in the first place was shit. “Obama hates whites. No, wait, he hates God. He hates the military and America and our freedom, and wants us to lose. He’s a terrorist. Er, sorry, a socialist. A Muslim? An Arab? My bad, he’s a baby killer. He’s launching a war on coal! Wait, what are we going with this week? Whatever he is, I ain’t paying taxes to him and he represents the downfall of this great country (in which I hate the majority of citizens, especially if they’re different than me, and am out riding a tank to defend them and ought to be appreciated for it, only I wouldn’t articulate it that well because I failed third-grade English)!” Small wonder we can barely remember your candidate’s name, as you haven’t actually found anything to say about him.

I understand the basic premise of conservatism: small government, low taxes. I’ve been through my Ayn Rand phase, and would be respectful of that position, if that’s what your position actually was. Unfortunately, you spew on and on about “pork” and “earmarks” while pouring billions into blowing up an area of the middle east that never threatened us. Unfortunately you don’t see the hypocrisy of worrying about welfare recipients collecting a few hundred bucks for supposedly being lazy and doing nothing, while CEOs, upper management, and shareholders collect millions for simply having a high and often un-earned position, or being lucky enough to have started the game with more chips on the table. (If you think most of those guys are “creating value”, you have a pretty rosy view of corporate America.) Then you accept bribes from those same big-wigs, to stifle technologies that would threaten jobs in obsolete 20th century industries… you mean a coal tycoon might have to take an entry level position in wind or solar? Gee, what was that you were saying earlier about “bootstraps”?

Look, republicans, I could have been a great mouthpiece for you. Many of my independent friends could have helped you too. See, ideas matter. Words matter. If you have anything worth saying, I encourage you to let me know. Tonight we saw that a positive campaign can win against a negative campaign. That you don’t have to be dirty. That you don’t have to dumb yourself down. That you don’t have to rouse people up to “boo” your opponent. That you can win by inspiring real hope in people, and focusing on what’s possible, not on what we should be “afraid” of.

I do, however, appreciate the flaming paper bag of shit you’ve provided us with over the past several months, in the form of YouTube comments, FOX news reports, and the Neanderthal-like, half-grunting, half-chanting sound you make at rallies. It’s a glowing reminder that it doesn’t always pay to be an asshole.

Ideas

Here are a few ideas that have been vaguely floating around in my brain:

1. Improvisation club/network - advertise locally, inviting musicians and singers who like to improvise to join a network or mailing list, so we can all call on one another to participate in projects. For me, in particular, to get more recording projects going that start as improvisations, but can then be refined with editing and overdubbing (this is just something I really enjoy).

2. Microfilming - filming things so up close that they are unrecognizable. A children’s version of National Geographic magazine, called World, used to do these, but they were done as a “guess what this is” game rather than an artistic expression, so some of the pictures weren’t as aesthetically pleasing as I’d like to… “shoot for” (pardon the pun).

3. Live sessions - bringing a laptop with partially-complete sessions on it to a gig (making sure there are backup copies on another computer!), and actually recording guitar and vocal tracks in front of an audience. I wouldn’t be able to do multiple takes or punch-ins — without alienating the audience — but if I performed like this more than once, then I could cherry-pick the best bits from each show. Yes, there would be some bleed-through and audience noise on the vocal track, but I can manage with stuff like that. I could also have the software I’m using projected on a screen behind me.

Added 7/23/08:

4. Music theory book - “Music theory for people who hate music theory”. Kind of self-explanatory here.

5. DVD based on the “So You Want…” series - again, self-explanatory.