Creative Quest. Questlove

Creative Quest. Questlove

I spent significant parts of my career leading, guiding, and directing creative resources and processes. It is where I found the “jazz” in a career of marketing as opposed to pursuing a legal career. As in most things I have done, once setting myself to the plow I have studied and prepared myself to be good at it; to have a comprehension enough to make a difference. This has led me to a variety of authors and books / essays on creative and the creative process. I believe creative process is like day planners – there are many approaches and plans but there is not a ONE and ONLY; what works for you is what works. There is no shortage of books and theories on creativity. You need to discover, create, curate the process that best works for you and leverage or ignore the others. That being said, its a book full of ideas and ‘tips”. (I hate the word ‘tips’. It diminishes the importance of an idea.) For me the book was meaningful if only to get me to the last chapter No End – Lifelongering / Persisting. Questlove’s take on enduring to the end.

"creativity is a lifelong endeavor. Practice may or may not be perfect, which is why you should never stop practicing."

And I had to read this because I love his name. It reminds me of CrossLove, one of the YM in Delray Beach. I have long been aware of Questlove, though it has only been of recent years that I have become aware of the breadth of his brilliance. I knew of his Hip Hop career, didn't know he was leading edge; knew of his cooking expertise and had even shared his book on cooking with Parker. His writing style isn't great litterateur but it is accessible, readable and effectively communicates. He speaks of old favorite creative starter processes like OppoScales and Start with the end in mind - Beginning with the newspaper article acknowledging the successful launch of XXX and Sticking to your guns. He brings new light to Making your environment reflective of your taste, Widen your circle, Seek out boredom and embrace it; Embrace the things that scare you and Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Its worthy of a quick read, And if you have never read a book on the creative process – go find another flame and spark additional fires. Try The Six Thinking Hats of Creative Communication by Edward De Bono

“ With the help (or hindrance of) the online world, the brain is more a hunter- gatherer and less a farmer”.

‘Sometimes you hear from a company that a certain work doesn’t have an audience. That's not true. It has an audience ,,, its a matter of finding them.’

“ creativity is one of the few human endeavors where you can crash your plane and walk away from it”David Bowie.

“Always stay within sight of healthy competition.”

when you lower your cognitive inhibitions, “more information enters into your conscious mind, which you can then tinker with and recombine. The result: creative ideas.” Harvard psychologist Shelley Carson

"copying, over covering, is always a valuable exercise.”

“Healthy habits keep you connected to the source of your ideas but you should also keep at it when you are older well after you retired from whatever profession. “

“How to maintain a youthful perspective

- Trying to eat well.

- Keeping the company younger people

- laugh

- Don’t stop going down a flight of stairs just because it hurts a little when to start stopping - you’re on your way to shutting down entirely

“You have to keep going, you have to take the stairs even if they hurt you realizing it’s a long game rather than a short ...to understand the passage of time and give you perspective not only on your own work but on your own identity”

“...Not acknowledge the ways in which age limits your move into the world”

It is about finding your own unique way of fitting into the continually repeating human experience nothing you do is new but you can still be new within that realization

The Eight Mountains. by Paolo Cognetti

The Eight Mountains. by Paolo Cognetti

Uniquely describes the relationship between people of the mountains, people drawn to mountains like a moth to a flame, mountains physical the space, and Mountain communities. Or it’s a book on relationships And the different manifestations of love and relationship between

father/son , husband /wife, friend/ friend, mother/son and man/man as it ebbs and flows over time.

I always have said Minnesota could use a mountain. Just plunk it past Burnsville. Here in Florida you could throw one down in the Keys. In either case mountains anchor the landscape and provide you with the sense of direction, or perhaps orientation, or purhaps a breeze, or perhaps serenity.

I enjoyed it on several levels:

-the necessity of having an expertise in a craft,

- the necessity of having a singular focused passion

-How effective am I in communicating in my relationships

- a well told story in evocative language

“Each of us has a favorite altitude in the mountains, a Landscape that resembles us, where we feel best"

“Was a man who seem to be Marked by his own worst inner thoughts as if they were carved there in his features”

“... The sense of guilt ruined any pleasure there might have been in doing “

“it was impossible to convey what it feels like up there to those who stayed below”

The Seabirds Cry: the lives and loves of the planets great ocean voyagers. Adam Nicholson

The Seabirds Cry: the lives and loves of the planets great ocean voyagers. Adam Nicholson

A beautiful exploration of 10 species of seabirds – and the threats they face. “a poetic, soaring exploration of 10 species of seabirds”: Fulmar, Puffin, Kittiwake, Gull, Guillemot, Gannet , Commorant, Shearwater, Great Auk, Albatross – which revels in the way they “float like beings from the otherworld”; "They are bringers of fertility, the deliverers of life from ocean to land."

Their population dropping by nearly 70% in the last sixty years, a billion fewer now than there were in 1950.

What is to be done:

1— better understanding in the state of the world seabirds

2—their breeding places need to be protected from people and predatory animals

3—tighter controls involved in all kinds of fishing vessels

4—for control the rate at which we are changing in the atmosphere in the ocean (global warming)

I like birds. I like observing them in the morning at the Wakodahatchee wetlands here in Florida. I’m concerned about our world and the depletion of BIRDS of all types. It’s a well written, interesting book particularly if you want to know more about these specific species, and if you need the slightest increased motivation to act in BIRDS and the EARTH’S defense.

I find it interesting my circle of books has been fairly narrow of late:
Institutional Racism - what we need to do
Global Warming  & Nature - what we need to do
Receiving, Identifying  & Acting Upon Promptings  - what we need to do  

Breaking out of the mold this week and reading a couple of books that my eldest granddaughter is reading so that she and I can chat about them. It will be fun  next up -The Adventures of Max Crumbly. 

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The Book of Phoenix. Nnedi Okorafor

The Book of Phoenix Nnedi Okorafor

I heard of Okorafor upon listening to one of her short stories being reason Levar Burton Reads podcast. It was part fantasy, part "powerful, memorable, superhuman women", it was all enjoyable. I approached this book with high expectations and was not disappointed.

The Book of Phoenix is a unique work of magical futurism- combining mythology, science and fantasy. It features the rise of, what I guess is to be expected from Nnedi Okorafor, a powerful, memorable, superhuman woman. Phoenix was grown and raised among other genetic experiments in New York’s Tower 7. She is an “accelerated woman”—she comes to a realization of who she is and what she can accomplish and in so doing becomes 'the Phoenix "that rises from the ash and changes ( redesigns) the world.

I think it foreshadows, part of what may be our future if we do not address institutional racism, other legacy issues that can arise in fighting the historic and ongoing exploitation of those deemed "less".

An insightful, engaging and a contributing read in my efforts to expand my understanding and treatment of others and wrestling with institutional racism.

Redskins: Insult and Brand . C. Richard King

Redskins: Insult and Brand .   C. Richard King

examines how the ongoing struggle over the team name raises important questions about how white Americans perceive American Indians, and the market and cultural power of consumer marketing. 

The Washington Redskins franchise is still one of the  most valuable in professional sports partially  because of its recognizable, popular, and profitable brand. Despite the indisputable fact that "redskins” is a derogatory, institutional racist, historically offensive name for American Indians. It has been the foundation of their branding efforts. As a brand marketer the correlation seems readily apparent. And I can understand their desire to hold it close.

The number of campaigns to change the name has risen in recent years despite the current team owner’s assertion that the team will never do change. Franchise owners counter criticism by arguing that the team name is positive and a term of respect and honor that many American Indians embrace. The NFL, for its part, actively defends the name and supports it in court. It is difficult for me to read this, other books, and articles and not come to the conclusion that the name and logo should, must be, changed. The marketers logic does not over power the necessity to be civil.

Not a particularly well written book. Full of redundancies and weak language , yet a compulsive accumulation of data. Worth reading. Worthy more to act upon.

Binti. Nnedi Okorafor

Binti. Nnedi Okorafor

It has fantasy and math, aliens and space ships, war and love, women taking lead society defining roles, and the good guys being African centric and people. It isn't often that I read to books from the same author in such close proximity to each other but part of the variable is when the library makes them available to me through the reservation process.

This was the third book in a trilogy sequence.

I didn't feel bad about skipping the first two; I pretty sure I should not invest the time for all three. But to read One how Fun!

Go read it, enjoy the story, enjoy the power of this author to convey the power of Binti - a woman , hero, a force to be dealt with.

The Space Barons. Christian Davenport

The Space Barons  by Christian Devonport

The Space Barons focuses on SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic, with an emphasis on their billionaire  leaders: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson- my main interest was in the first two. These billionaire entrepreneurs have/are pouring their fortunes into a surprising / exciting/ private citizen instead of government resurrection of the American space program.

Space X - Elon Musk- “head down plow through the line”- the hare . Moved boldly and rashly forward.

Blue Origin -   Jeff Bezos -The tortoise slow is smooth and smooth is fast- 1-”gradatim ferociter, "step-by-step courageously." Moves forward with detailed planning and meticulous execution to the plan.

“Their race to the stars was driven not by war or politics; rather by money and ego and adventure a chance to extend humanity out into space”

These companies and leaders were dynamic in one industry and then changed the rocket business, and they're still changing it today. Their pace of growth and discovery and change is amazing . It makes for a quick, fascinating, fact and tidbits full read.

Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Marina. Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Experientially the gap between crafted books and well written book is chasmistic. I look back at The Food Explorer and it is well written but a grand canyon gulf resides between it and the crafted, the curated book, where one revels in Zafon’s. Zafon writes in Spanish and to have the nuance and strength of words emerge translated from the original I simply find amazing. I read French fairly well and Spanish functionally enough to appreciate the language subtleties in word chose and translation as I compare for example reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish and correlating it with the english and french versions. I marvel at the depth of language immersion developed to render rich, meaty prose equally delectible in a non-native tongue.

The story is fast paced, compelling, interesting, well-written, and dark. But for the fact that I was on a long flight, in an airplane, with a high level of physical discomfort, trying to distract my brain from focusing on the pain – I would not have finished the book – too dark. As it was I glided along scarcely anguishing empathetically for the characters, simply my own.

Perhaps it was rendered darker than it is by my own discomfort. Though I wouldn’t recommend you read it. If you appreciate a more Gothic, coming of age, in Barcelona by all means go for it. He is one of my favorite authors. Spanish or translated.

“Time does to the body what stupidity does to the soul”

“All the geography, trigonometry, and arithmetic in the world are useless unless you learn to think for yourself. No school teaches you that. It's not on the curriculum.”

“A good friend once told me that the problems are like cockroaches. If drawn to light, they'll get scared.” “the public will always choose a warmed-up lie over the cold truth.”

“If you don't know where you're going, you won't go anywhere.”

“we only remember what never really happened.”

The Food Explorer by Daniel Stone

The food explorer. The true adventures of the globetrotting botanist who transformed what America eats by Daniel Stone

True adventures, indeed a travelogue, of David Fairchild, a late 19th century food explorer who traveled the globe and introduced diverse crops like avocado, mangoes, seedless grapes – and thousands more – to the American plate.

Fairfield becomes a meaningful globe trotter and cultural savant as much due to his tutelage by millionaire and bon vivant Barbour Lathrop as to his own sense of adventure and tenacity.

Not a particularly well-crafted text; yet informative and educational in a time when biodiversity and sustainable food sourcing is critical. Climate change and invasive species into all climes are key accelerators in the necessity to understand and act on food sourcing, today. Stone does not attempt to answer the contemporary questions; he merely creates a context in which to understand them. Parts of the book feel redundant due to the repetitive process in finding, procuring, shipping and reestablishing in a new environment regardless of the plant and its place of origin. Some have more intrigue or danger than others.

“If domesticating crops was an earth-changing advance, figuring out how to reproduce them came a close second.”

An enjoyable read but not an urgent read.

Landmarks by Robert Mcfarlane

Not vested enough to write my own review; linguistically interesting.

““Landmarks,” a remarkable book on language and landscape by the British academic, nature writer and word lover Robert Macfarlane, makes a passionate case for restoring the “literacy of the land,” for recalling and setting down the lexicon of the natural world, at a time when it’s rapidly disappearing. He means to explore the value of reading and writing about nature, he explains, and also to celebrate what he calls “word magic” — terms that can “enchant our relations with nature and place.”

Well written, quotables -

“Before you become a writer you must first become a reader. Every hour spent reading is an hour spent learning to write;”

“Books , like landscapes, leave their marks in us. (...) Certain books, though, like certain landscapes, stay with us even when we left them, changing not just our weathers but our climates.”

“these words: migrant birds, arriving from distant places with story and metaphor caught in their feathers;”

“Looking from afar - from present to past, from exile to homeland, from island back to mainland, mountain-top at lowland - results not in vision's diffusion but in its sharpening; not in memory's dispersal but in it's plenishment.”