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.

Google Analytics has been disabled.

That’s it.

The script has been removed from the footer, and from the index page.

The bookmark has been removed in my browser.

No more analytics.

I feel emotional about this, but that’s because I’m an emotional person, and I’m affected by pretty much everything.

I make no guarantee that I will continue to post here.

I make no guarantee that I will start any kind of new web presence to replace it.

I have absolutely no idea what I will decide to do.

Just like starting over, part 1

We won’t try to cover everything all at once. We’ll probably jump around a bit lot.

What do you know, what do you not know?

I’m keeping the old stuff. I’m not getting rid of it. There’s been this guilt with me for years that somehow my packrat impulse is the culprit that stifles my creative growth in the present. I don’t even know who told me to feel that way, or if I invented the guilt myself. But I’m keeping the old music, the old ideas, etc., because I like them for what they are. I’ve always liked most of the material itself, in some way or another, despite having grown past some aspects of it; if anything, it’s the container or the packaging of the catalog that I’ve never been happy with. And what I don’t know, and have struggled for years to figure out, is: what should that container be?

Idea: wrap every song into its own custom-created Flash file. It can be low on graphics; it can be a single still image or some text with the lyrics or interesting trivia about the song. Make it easy for people to play one at random, instead of having to choose based on unfamiliar titles. The point is, it’s something to experience in an immediate way while online. You can put music online already, but I still buy into the old cliché that people need something to look at, otherwise it’s like you’re asking them to do you a favor by listening. Time is money, chop chop.

What about the blogging thing? Blogging is love-hate. How to keep the love and lose the hate? Look at this post. It has to have a title on it. It’s like I’m “presenting” something to you, so I can’t feel free to just think out loud. This post has to “represent” me. Could I post here about what I did yesterday? Yesterday I found a site where some guy wrote an incredibly long and detailed analysis of the Beatles’ Revolution 9. Since the domain in the guy’s email address is up for sale, and the pages are hosted on Geocities, I thought there might be a good chance this intriguing thing would disappear, so I saved all the pages and carefully arranged them into a PDF file, going page by page to make sure none of his ASCII graphics were split between pages, and fixing a few spelling errors when I saw them.

But if I post about it in a BLOG POST, then it’s like this thing I did is supposed to be representational of WHO I AM. If someone asks, “who is Keith Handy?”, do I want the answer to be, “well, according to this site, he’s the guy who spent several hours compiling some other guy’s Beatles website into a PDF file”?

So what I want is some kind of a feed that’s a cross between Twitter and Blogging, or the full spectrum in-between. Somewhere where I feel like it’s OK to write a one-second comment on the weather, and equally OK to write a ten-paragraph rant about the creative spirit.

I also want to not feel like I have to write a nice “closing” each time I publish, like this sentence I’m struggling to force out right now.

R.I.P. - this blog?

Is it over? Was it over a year ago or more?

Maybe it’s all, like, you know, some kind of “those who can, do, and those who can’t, blog about it” thing. And this blog has failed. And there are actual blogs about… well, there’s a blog actually called FAIL BLOG, and it’s a very successful blog. So it’s not a good example. But this blog is literally a failed blog.

It’s not that I couldn’t have done better, written more consistently, zeroed in on a topic, promoted it, etc… but there are people who are born to blog, and I’m only born to once in a while have a lot to say and need somewhere to say it.

This blog hasn’t really helped me to connect with anyone in any way. So I’m thinking about making it private. I wouldn’t change the settings, I’d still leave it open and accessible and searchable, but just declare that it’s “for me”, and stop even looking at the embarrassing Google Analytics reports. I could even stop allowing comments, but then I’d be tricking myself into thinking people were trying to leave comments, instead of actually getting myself to stop caring.

The rule would be, I’d only post here if I absolutely positively was not hoping or trying to start any kind of a two-way dialogue. If there’s even the tiniest hope in me that someone would maybe respond to something, then it should be posted elsewhere, possibly on one of the “social networking” sites where professional developers actually get paid to ensure that their site functions in a SOCIAL way. It’s not my job to make my own fucking website a “social” thing.

The problem is, I’m not sure there’s anything I ever do say or write that I’m not secretly hoping people won’t acknowledge in some way. I’m not comfortable with “zero comments”. But I have to become comfortable with it. I have to perform to the empty theater, just as I’ve had to draw on blank sheets of paper and put sound on virgin tape. I’ve chosen to walk the artist’s path, for real, and in the act of doing so, I face the abyss. I stop wriggling around and whining, and just say, “hello, abyss”, and listen to the sound of my own voice echoing, and meditate on it. If I have to go through all five fucking stages of mourning, I go through all five, and I don’t stop until I’ve completed them all, and made peace with them all.

Denial: Lots of people will eventually show up, just hang in there.

Anger: You used to follow me and now you don’t; you’ve betrayed me. Fuck you.

Bargaining: What do I need to do to make it more interesting and win your attention back?

Depression: Nobody is interested. Nobody cares.

Acceptance: How can I start over? What would be a more constructive use of this space?

It’s just a blog… it’s just a blog… it’s just a blog… it’s just a blog… it’s just a blog…

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.