Sir Ian McKellen Reads Kurt Vonnegut’s Letter to High School Students: Make Art and “Make Your Soul Grow”

in Creativity, Letters, Life, Theatre | July 29th, 2019

Author Kurt Von­negut was pos­sessed of a droll, unsen­ti­men­tal pub­lic speak­ing style. A son of Indi­anapo­lis, he nev­er lost his Hoosier accent, despite lengthy stints in Cape Cod and New York City.

Actor Ian McK­ellen, on the oth­er hand, exudes warmth. He’s a charmer who tells a sto­ry with a twin­kle in his eye, alter­ing his voice and facial expres­sions to height­en the effect. (Check out his Mag­gie Smith.) Vocal train­ing has only enhanced his beau­ti­ful instru­ment. (He can make a tire repair man­u­al sound like Shake­speare.)

These two lions may have come at their respec­tive crafts from dif­fer­ent angles, but Sir Ian did Von­negut proud, above, as part of Let­ters Live, an ongo­ing cel­e­bra­tion of the endur­ing pow­er of lit­er­ary cor­re­spon­dence.

The let­ter in ques­tion was penned the year before Vonnegut’s death, in reply to five stu­dents at a Jesuit high school in New York City, regret­ful­ly declin­ing their invi­ta­tion to vis­it.

Instead, he gave them two assign­ments.

One was fair­ly uni­ver­sal, the sort of thing one might encounter in a com­mence­ment address: make art and in so doing, learn about life, and your­self.

The oth­er was more con­crete:

Write a 6 line rhyming poem

Don’t show it or recite it to any­one.

Tear it up into lit­tle pieces

Dis­card the pieces in wide­ly sep­a­rat­ed trash recep­ta­cles

Why?

A chance for Xavier High School’s all male stu­dent body to air roman­tic feel­ings with­out fear of  dis­cov­ery or rejec­tion?

May­haps, but the true pur­pose of the sec­ond assign­ment is encap­su­lat­ed in the first—to “expe­ri­ence becom­ing” through a cre­ative act.

This notion clear­ly strikes a chord with Sir Ian, 17 years younger than Von­negut but by the time of the  2016 per­for­mance, clos­ing in on the igua­na-like age Von­negut had been when he wrote the let­ter.

Should we attribute the quiver on the clos­ing line to act­ing or gen­uine emo­tion on Sir Ian’s part?

Either way, it’s a love­ly ren­di­tion.

Novem­ber 5, 2006

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lock­wood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Bat­ten, Mau­r­er and Con­gius­ta:

I thank you for your friend­ly let­ters. You sure know how to cheer up a real­ly old geezer (84) in his sun­set years. I don’t make pub­lic appear­ances any more because I now resem­ble noth­ing so much as an igua­na. 

What I had to say to you, more­over, would not take long, to wit: Prac­tice any art, music, singing, danc­ing, act­ing, draw­ing, paint­ing, sculpt­ing, poet­ry, fic­tion, essays, reportage, no mat­ter how well or bad­ly, not to get mon­ey and fame, but to expe­ri­ence becom­ing, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seri­ous­ly! I mean start­ing right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a fun­ny or nice pic­ture of Ms. Lock­wood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the show­er and on and on. Make a face in your mashed pota­toes. Pre­tend you’re Count Drac­u­la.

Here’s an assign­ment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lock­wood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about any­thing, but rhymed. No fair ten­nis with­out a net. Make it as good as you pos­si­bly can. But don’t tell any­body what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to any­body, not even your girl­friend or par­ents or what­ev­er, or Ms. Lock­wood. OK?

Tear it up into tee­ny-wee­ny pieces, and dis­card them into wide­ly sep­a­rat­ed trash recep­ti­cals. You will find that you have already been glo­ri­ous­ly reward­ed for your poem. You have expe­ri­enced becom­ing, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Von­negut

(Ian McKellen’s oth­er Let­ters Live per­for­mance is a fic­tion­al com­ing out let­ter from Armis­tead Maupin’s Tales of the City, from a gay char­ac­ter to his Ani­ta Bryant-sup­port­ing par­ents.)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

In 1988, Kurt Von­negut Writes a Let­ter to Peo­ple Liv­ing in 2088, Giv­ing 7 Pieces of Advice

Why Should We Read Kurt Von­negut? An Ani­mat­ed Video Makes the Case

Kurt Von­negut Offers 8 Tips on How to Write Good Short Sto­ries (and Amus­ing­ly Graphs the Shapes Those Sto­ries Can Take)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inkyzine.  Join her in NYC on Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 9 for anoth­er sea­son of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Watch an Animated Documentary About the Pioneering Journalist & Feminist Icon Nellie Bly

in Animation, Gender, History, K-12, Life, Travel | July 26th, 2019

While no longer a house­hold name, the trail­blaz­ing jour­nal­ist Nel­lie Bly (1864–1922) is def­i­nite­ly an endur­ing Amer­i­can icon.

Her like­ness has graced a postage stamp and a fin­ger pup­pet.

Her life has been the sub­ject of numer­ous books and a made-for-TV movie.

Some hun­dred years after its com­ple­tion, her record-break­ing, 72-day round-the-world trip inspired an episode of The Amer­i­can Expe­ri­ence, a puz­zle-cum-boardgame, and a rol­lick­ing song by his­to­ry fans the Dee­dle Dee­dle Dees.

And now? Meet Nel­lie Bly, car­toon action hero. (Hero­ine? Hard to say which hon­orif­ic the opin­ion­at­ed and for­ward-think­ing Bly, born in 1864, would pre­fer…)

Film­mak­er Pen­ny Lane’s “Nel­lie Bly Makes the News,” above, is not the first to rec­og­nize this sort of poten­tial in the pio­neer­ing jour­nal­ist, whose 151st birth­day was cel­e­brat­ed with an ani­mat­ed Google Doo­dle and accom­pa­ny­ing song by Karen O, but Lane (no rela­tion to Lois, the fic­tion­al reporter mod­eled on you-know-who) wise­ly lets Bly speak for her­self.

Not only that, she brings her into the stu­dio for a 21st-cen­tu­ry inter­view, in which an eye-rolling Bly describes the resis­tance she encoun­tered from the male elite, who felt it was not just unseem­ly but impos­si­ble that a young woman should pur­sue the sort of jour­nal­is­tic career she envi­sioned for her­self.

She also touch­es on some of her most famous jour­nal­is­tic stunts, such as the under­cov­er stints in a New York City “insane asy­lum”and box-mak­ing fac­to­ry that led to exposés and even­tu­al­ly, social reform.

Biog­ra­ph­er Brooke Kroeger and brief glimpses of archival mate­ri­als touch on some of the oth­er high­lights in Bly’s auda­cious, self-direct­ed career.

The car­toon Bly’s hair­do and attire are peri­od appro­pri­ate, but her vocal inflec­tions, cour­tesy of broad­cast reporter and voiceover artist Sam­mi Jo Fran­cis, are clos­er in spir­it to that of Broad City’s Ilana Glaz­er.

(Inter­est­ing to note, giv­en Bly’s com­plaints about how promi­nent­ly the one dress she took on her round the world trip fea­tured in out­side sto­ries about that adven­ture, that dress is a pre­oc­cu­pa­tion of The Appre­ci­a­tion of Boot­ed News­women blog. Respect­ful as that site is, the focus there is def­i­nite­ly not on jour­nal­is­tic achieve­ment.)

via Aeon

Relat­ed Con­tent:

New Aug­ment­ed Real­i­ty App Cel­e­brates Sto­ries of Women Typ­i­cal­ly Omit­ted from U.S. His­to­ry Text­books

74 Essen­tial Books for Your Per­son­al Library: A List Curat­ed by Female Cre­atives

New Web Project Immor­tal­izes the Over­looked Women Who Helped Cre­ate Rock and Roll in the 1950s

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inkyzine.  Join her in NYC on Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 9 for anoth­er sea­son of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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The Principles for Success by Entrepreneur & Investor Ray Dalio: A 30-Minute Animated Primer

in Life, Philosophy | July 16th, 2019

Investor and hedge fund man­ag­er Ray Dalio has a net worth of $18.4 bil­lion. That alone would per­suade a great many of us to lis­ten to any and all advice he has to offer, but unlike many mul­ti-bil­lion­aires, he’s also put no small amount of thought into just what advice to give and how to give it. One rea­son is that the pieces of advice he doles out pub­licly began as pieces of advice for him­self, dis­cov­ered through tri­al and error and refined into a set of prin­ci­ples. These he lays out in his book Prin­ci­ples: Life and Work, the con­tent of which he has also dis­tilled into the ani­mat­ed video above, “Prin­ci­ples for Suc­cess by Ray Dalio.”

Dalio breaks down his own jour­ney to suc­cess as the con­tin­ued rep­e­ti­tion of a five-step process:

  1. Know your goals and run after them
  2. Encounter the prob­lems that stand in the way of get­ting to your goals
  3. Diag­nose these prob­lems to get at their root caus­es
  4. Design a plan to elim­i­nate the prob­lems
  5. Exe­cute those designs

This frame­work already sets Dalio apart from oth­er suc­cess­ful advice-givers, some of whom offer noth­ing more than broad plat­i­tudes about believ­ing in your­self and nev­er giv­ing up hope, and oth­ers of whom fall back on cyn­i­cal cracks about doing unto oth­ers before they do unto you. Dalio, for his part, endors­es a mind­set he calls “hyper­re­al­ism,” the adop­tion of which demands putting the truth before all else. And the hyper­re­al­ist first exam­ines the truth about him­self, assess­ing as objec­tive­ly as pos­si­ble his weak­ness­es as well as his strengths and reg­u­lar­ly draw­ing upon the per­spec­tives of those who dis­agree with him.

Under­ly­ing Dalio’s ideas about hyper­re­al­ism and suc­cess is a mech­a­nis­tic con­cep­tion of human­i­ty, the econ­o­my, the world, indeed all real­i­ty: “Every­thing is a machine,” as he stark­ly puts it. By this, he does­n’t mean we should think of our­selves as pre-pro­grammed robots, but that we can approach all of our choic­es as puz­zles to be fig­ured out. “Most every­thing hap­pens over and over again in slight­ly dif­fer­ent ways,” he says, but most of us, with our view­points biased toward recent his­to­ry and our “ego and blind spot bar­ri­ers” that keep us from see­ing the full pic­ture, mis­tak­en­ly regard the sit­u­a­tions in which we find our­selves as unique, thus mak­ing them into more dif­fi­cult prob­lems than they are.

Of course, even if we embrace hyper­re­al­ism and devel­op ever more reli­able strate­gies to sur­mount the obsta­cles that crop up along our cho­sen paths, we’ll fail as often as we suc­ceed. Dalio tells of his own grand hum­bling in the ear­ly 1980s when he bet every­thing on a depres­sion that nev­er came, and explains how the fall­out taught him that “truth is the essen­tial foun­da­tion for pro­duc­ing good out­comes.” Even if we have no inter­est in doing what it takes to make $18.4 bil­lion, we might still bear in mind the two prin­ci­ple-dri­ven equa­tions that Dalio pro­vides — “Dreams + real­i­ty + deter­mi­na­tion = a suc­cess­ful life” and “Pain + reflec­tion = progress” — along with his con­vic­tion that suc­cess requires not just know­ing the truth of world, but the truth of our­selves as well.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How The Eco­nom­ic Machine Works: A 30-Minute Ani­mat­ed Primer by Hedge Fund Investor Ray Dalio

Steve Jobs Shares a Secret for Suc­cess: Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help

Har­vard Dean Lists the 5 Essen­tial Ques­tions to Ask In Life … Which Will Bring You Hap­pi­ness & Suc­cess

Oprah Winfrey’s Har­vard Com­mence­ment Speech: Fail­ure is Just Part of Mov­ing Through Life

Alain de Bot­ton Pro­pos­es a Kinder, Gen­tler Phi­los­o­phy of Suc­cess

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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Deliberate Practice: A Mindful & Methodical Way to Master Any Skill

in Life, Productivity | June 27th, 2019

Each and every day we eat, we sleep, we read, we brush our teeth. So why haven’t we all become world-class mas­ters of eat­ing, sleep­ing, read­ing, and teeth-brush­ing? Most of us, if we’re hon­est with our­selves, plateaued on those par­tic­u­lar skills decades ago, despite nev­er hav­ing missed our dai­ly prac­tice ses­sions. This should tell us some­thing impor­tant about the dif­fer­ence between prac­tic­ing an action and sim­ply doing it a lot, a dis­tinc­tion at the heart of the con­cept of “delib­er­ate prac­tice.” As the Sprouts video above explains it, delib­er­ate prac­tice “is a mind­ful and high­ly struc­tured form of learn­ing by doing,” a “process of con­tin­ued exper­i­men­ta­tion to first achieve mas­tery and even­tu­al­ly full auto­matic­i­ty of a spe­cif­ic skill.”

Psy­chol­o­gist Anders Eric­s­son, the sin­gle fig­ure most close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with delib­er­ate prac­tice, draws a dis­tinc­tion with what he calls naive prac­tice: “Naive prac­tice is peo­ple who just play games,” and in so doing “just accu­mu­late more expe­ri­ence.” But in delib­er­ate prac­tice, “you actu­al­ly pin­point some­thing you want to change. And once you have that spe­cif­ic goal of chang­ing it, you will now engage in a prac­tice activ­i­ty that has a pur­pose of chang­ing that.”

As a post on delib­er­ate prac­tice at Far­nam Street puts it, “great per­form­ers decon­struct ele­ments of what they do into chunks they can prac­tice. They get bet­ter at that aspect and move on to the next,” often under the guid­ance of a teacher who can more clear­ly see their strengths and weak­ness­es in action.

“Most of the time we’re prac­tic­ing we’re real­ly doing activ­i­ties in our com­fort zone,” says the Far­nam Street post. “This doesn’t help us improve because we can already do these activ­i­ties eas­i­ly” — just as eas­i­ly, per­haps, as we eat, sleep, read, and brush our teeth. But we also fail to improve when we oper­ate at the oth­er end of the spec­trum, in the “pan­ic zone” that “leaves us par­a­lyzed as the activ­i­ties are too dif­fi­cult and we don’t know where to start. The only way to make progress is to oper­ate in the learn­ing zone, which are those activ­i­ties that are just out of reach.” As in every oth­er area of life, what chal­lenges us too much frus­trates us and what chal­lenges us too lit­tle bores us; only at just the right bal­ance do we ben­e­fit.

But strik­ing that bal­ance presents chal­lenges of its own, chal­lenges that have ensured a read­er­ship for writ­ings on the sub­ject of how best to engage in delib­er­ate prac­tice by Eric­s­son as well as many oth­ers (such as writer-entre­pre­neur James Clear, whose begin­ner’s guide to delib­er­ate prac­tice you can read online here). The video above on Eric­sson’s book Peak: How to Mas­ter Almost Any­thing explains his view of the goal of delib­er­ate prac­tice as to devel­op the kind of library of “men­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tions” that mas­ters of every dis­ci­pline — golfers, doc­tors, gui­tarists, come­di­ans, nov­el­ists — use to approach every sit­u­a­tion that might arise. Devel­op­ing those men­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tions requires spe­cif­ic goals, intense peri­ods of prac­tice, imme­di­ate feed­back dur­ing that prac­tice, and above all, fre­quent dis­com­fort. Every­one enjoys mas­tery once they attain it, but if you find your­self hav­ing too much fun on the way, con­sid­er the pos­si­bil­i­ty that you’re not prac­tic­ing delib­er­ate­ly enough.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Richard Feynman’s “Note­book Tech­nique” Will Help You Learn Any Subject–at School, at Work, or in Life

The Cor­nell Note-Tak­ing Sys­tem: Learn the Method Stu­dents Have Used to Enhance Their Learn­ing Since the 1940s

Wyn­ton Marsalis Gives 12 Tips on How to Prac­tice: For Musi­cians, Ath­letes, or Any­one Who Wants to Learn Some­thing New

How to Prac­tice Effec­tive­ly: Lessons from Neu­ro­science Can Help Us Mas­ter Skills in Music, Sports & Beyond

What’s a Sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly-Proven Way to Improve Your Abil­i­ty to Learn? Get Out and Exer­cise

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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Winston Churchill Gets a Doctor’s Note to Drink “Unlimited” Alcohol in Prohibition America (1932)

in History, Life | June 24th, 2019

churchill alcohol letter

In Decem­ber 1931, hav­ing just embarked on a 40-stop lec­ture tour of the Unit­ed States, Win­ston Churchill was run­ning late to dine with financier Bernard Baruch on New York City’s Upper East Side. He hadn’t both­ered to bring Baruch’s address, oper­at­ing under the incor­rect assump­tion that his friend was so dis­tin­guished a per­son­age, any ran­dom cab-dri­ving com­mon­er would auto­mat­i­cal­ly rec­og­nize his build­ing.

Such were the days before cell phones and Google Maps.…

Even­tu­al­ly, Churchill bagged the cab, and shot out across 5th Avenue mid-block, think­ing he would fare bet­ter on foot.

Instead, he was very near­ly “squashed like a goose­ber­ry” when he was struck by a car trav­el­ing about 35 miles an hour.

Churchill, who wast­ed no time ped­dling his mem­o­ries of the acci­dent and sub­se­quent hos­pi­tal­iza­tion to The Dai­ly Mail, explained his mis­cal­cu­la­tion thus­ly:

In Eng­land we fre­quent­ly cross roads along which fast traf­fic is mov­ing in both direc­tions. I did not think the task I set myself now either dif­fi­cult or rash. But at this moment habit played me a dead­ly trick. I no soon­er got out of the cab some­where about the mid­dle of the road and told the dri­ver to wait than I instinc­tive­ly turned my eyes to the left. About 200 yards away were the yel­low head­lights of an approach­ing car. I thought I had just time to cross the road before it arrived; and I start­ed to do so in the prepossession—wholly unwar­rant­ed— that my only dan­gers were from the left.

Yeah, well, that’s why we paint the word “LOOK” in the cross­walk, pal, equip­ping the Os with left-lean­ing pupils for good mea­sure.

Anoth­er cab fer­ried the wound­ed Churchill to Lenox Hill Hos­pi­tal, where he iden­ti­fied him­self as “Win­ston Churchill, a British States­man” and was treat­ed for a deep gash to the head, a frac­tured nose, frac­tured ribs, and severe shock.

“I do not wish to be hurt any more. Give me chlo­ro­form or some­thing,” he direct­ed, while wait­ing for the anes­thetist.

After two weeks in the hos­pi­tal, where he man­aged to devel­op pleurisy in addi­tion to his injuries, Churchill and his fam­i­ly repaired to the Bahamas for some R&R.

It didn’t take long to feel the finan­cial pinch of all those can­celled lec­ture dates, how­ev­er. Six weeks after the acci­dent, he resumed an abbre­vi­at­ed but still gru­el­ing 14-stop ver­sion of the tour, despite his fears that he would prove unfit.

Otto Pick­hardt, Lenox Hill’s admit­ting physi­cian came to the res­cue by issu­ing Churchill the Get Out of Pro­hi­bi­tion Free Pass, above. To wit:

…the post-acci­dent con­va­les­cence of the Hon. Win­ston S. Churchill neces­si­tates the use of alco­holic spir­its espe­cial­ly at meal times. The quan­ti­ty is nat­u­ral­ly indef­i­nite but the min­i­mum require­ments would be 250 cubic cen­time­ters.

Per­haps this is what the emi­nent British States­man meant by chlo­ro­form “or some­thing”? No doubt he was relieved about those indef­i­nite quan­ti­ties. Cheers.

Read Churchill’s “My New York Mis­ad­ven­ture” in its entire­ty here. You can also learn more by perus­ing this sec­tion of Mar­tin Gilbert’s biog­ra­phy, Win­ston Churchill: The Wilder­ness Years.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in May, 2016.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Win­ston Churchill’s List of Tips for Sur­viv­ing a Ger­man Inva­sion: See the Nev­er-Dis­trib­uted Doc­u­ment (1940)

Win­ston Churchill’s Paint­ings: Great States­man, Sur­pris­ing­ly Good Artist

Col­or Footage of Win­ston Churchill’s Funer­al in 1965

Oh My God! Win­ston Churchill Received the First Ever Let­ter Con­tain­ing “O.M.G.” (1917)

Ani­mat­ed: Win­ston Churchill’s Top 10 Say­ings About Fail­ure, Courage, Set­backs, Haters & Suc­cess

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. She lives in New York City, some 30 blocks to the north of the scene of Churchill’s acci­dent. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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What Advice Would You Give Your Younger Self?: What Research Shows, and What You Have to Say

in Data, Life, Psychology, Random, Science | June 21st, 2019

Pho­to of Dr. Esther Pohl Love­joy via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Almost every­one has advice they’d glad­ly give their younger self, so much so that Clem­son Uni­ver­si­ty psy­chol­o­gy pro­fes­sor Robin Kowal­s­ki and doc­tor­al stu­dent Annie McCord, were moved to ini­ti­ate a sys­tem­at­ic study of it.

The first of its kind, this study com­piled the respons­es of more than 400 par­tic­i­pants over 30, whose hypo­thet­i­cal younger self­’s aver­age age was 18.

The study’s data was culled from a sur­vey con­duct­ed over Amazon’s crowd­sourc­ing mar­ket­place, MTurk. Respon­dents spent 45 min­utes or so answer­ing hypo­thet­i­cal ques­tions online, receiv­ing $3 for their efforts.

Mon­ey-grub­bing, data-skew­ing shirk­ers were held at bay by ques­tion 36.

(Play along at home after the fact here.)

Kowal­s­ki and McCord’s find­ings, pub­lished in the bimonth­ly aca­d­e­m­ic Jour­nal of Social Psy­chol­o­gy, echo many recur­rent themes in their oth­er sur­vey of the same demo­graph­ic, this one hav­ing to do with regret—the one that got away, blown edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties, mon­ey squan­dered, and risks not tak­en.

Per­son­al­i­ty and sit­u­a­tion fig­ure in, of course, but over­whelm­ing­ly, the crowd-sourced advice takes aim at the fate­ful choic­es (or non-choic­es) of youth.

Some com­mon pieces of advice include:

  • “Be kinder to your­self.”
  • “Always know your worth.”
  • “The world is big­ger than you think it is and your wor­ries aren’t as impor­tant as you think they are, just be you.”
  • “Don’t wor­ry if you look dif­fer­ent, or feel you look dif­fer­ent, from most oth­er peo­ple. There is much more to you than what oth­ers see on the sur­face.”
  • “Don’t get so caught up in the dif­fi­cul­ties of the moment since they are only tem­po­rary.”
  • “Don’t dwell on the past. Just because it was that way doesn’t mean it will be that way again.”

There’s not much research to sug­gest how recep­tive the par­tic­i­pants’ younger selves would have been to these unso­licit­ed pearls of wis­dom, but 65.7% of respon­dents report that they have imple­ment­ed some changes as a result of tak­ing Kowalk­si and McCord’s sur­vey.

Dr. Kowal­s­ki, who’s come to believe her “laser-focused on school” younger self would have ben­e­fit­ed from some inter­vals of rose-smelling, writes that the bet­ter-late-than-nev­er approach “can facil­i­tate well-being and bring us more in line with the per­son that we would like to be should we fol­low that advice.”

If you want to dou­ble down, share your advice with chil­dren, prefer­ably your own.

And for those who can’t rest easy til they’ve com­pared them­selves with Oprah Win­frey:

Be relaxed

Stop being afraid

Every­thing will be alright

No sur­prise there.

READERS—WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOUR YOUNGER SELVES? Add your advice to the com­ments sec­tion below. (The author’s is some­what unprint­able…)

For inspi­ra­tion, see the Advice to My Younger Self Sur­vey Ques­tions here and the relat­ed sur­vey deal­ing with regret here.

via Big Think

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Fry: What I Wish I Knew When I Was 18

The Top Five Regrets of the Dying

Bertrand Russell’s Advice For How (Not) to Grow Old: “Make Your Inter­ests Grad­u­al­ly Wider and More Imper­son­al”

36 Artists Give Advice to Young Cre­ators: Wim Wen­ders, Jonathan Franzen, Lydia Davis, Pat­ti Smith, David Byrne, Umber­to Eco & More

Bri­an Eno’s Advice for Those Who Want to Do Their Best Cre­ative Work: Don’t Get a Job

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inkyzine.  Her month­ly install­ment book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain, will resume in the fall. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Jeff Tweedy Explains How to Learn to Love Music You Hate: Watch a Video Animated by R. Sikoryak

in Animation, Creativity, Life, Music | June 10th, 2019

Punk rock peer pres­sure forced Jeff Tweedy, founder of Wilco, to shun Neil Young and oth­er  “hippie“musical greats.

Ah, youth…

Were Tweedy, now a sea­soned 51-year-old, to deliv­er a com­mence­ment speech, he’d do well to coun­sel younger musi­cians to reject such knee jerk rejec­tion, as he does in the above ani­mat­ed inter­view for Top­ic mag­a­zine.

Not because he’s now one of those grey beards him­self, but rather because he’s come to view influ­ence and taste as liv­ing organ­isms, capa­ble of inter­act­ing in sur­pris­ing ways.

That’s not to say the young­sters are oblig­ed to declare an affin­i­ty for what they hear when ven­tur­ing into the past, just as Tweedy does­n’t fake a fond­ness for much of the new music he checks out on the reg­u­lar.

Think of this prac­tice as some­thing sim­i­lar to one mil­lions of child­ish picky eaters have endured. Eat your veg­eta­bles. Just a taste. You can’t say you don’t like them until you’ve active­ly tast­ed them. Who knows? You may find one you like. Or per­haps it’ll prove more of a slow burn, becom­ing an unfore­seen ingre­di­ent of your matu­ri­ty.

In oth­er words, bet­ter to sam­ple wide­ly from the unend­ing musi­cal buf­fet avail­able on the Inter­net than con­ceive of your­self as a whol­ly orig­i­nal rock god, sprung ful­ly formed from the head of Zeus, capiche?

The nar­ra­tion sug­gests that Tweedy’s got some prob­lems with online cul­ture, but he gives props to the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion for its soft­en­ing effect on the iron­clad cul­tur­al divide of his 70s and 80s youth.

Was it real­ly all just a mar­ket­ing scheme?

Unlike­ly, giv­en the Viet­nam War, but there’s no deny­ing that edu­cat­ing our­selves in our pas­sion includes approach­ing its his­to­ry with an at-least-par­tial­ly open mind.

If you want to snap it shut after you’ve had some time to con­sid­er, that’s your call, though Tweedy sug­gests he’s nev­er com­fort­able writ­ing some­thing off for­ev­er.

If noth­ing else, the stuff he dis­likes teach­es him more about the stuff he loves—including, pre­sum­ably, some of his own impres­sive cat­a­log.

Kudos to direc­tor Kei­th Stack and Augen­blick Stu­dios, ani­ma­tor of so many Top­ic inter­views, for match­ing Tweedy with car­toon­ist R. Siko­ryak, an artist who clear­ly shares Tweedy’s cre­ative phi­los­o­phy as evidenced by such works as Terms and Con­di­tions and Mas­ter­piece Comics. Here is anoth­er who clear­ly knows how to make a meal from mix­ing old and new, tra­di­tion­al and exper­i­men­tal, high and low. One of the bonus joys of this ani­mat­ed life les­son is catch­ing all of Siko­ryak’s musi­cal East­er eggs—includ­ing a cameo by Nip­per, the face of His Mas­ter’s Voice.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Kurt Cobain Lists His 50 Favorite Albums: Fea­tures LPs by David Bowie, Pub­lic Ene­my & More

The Out­siders: Lou Reed, Hunter S. Thomp­son, and Frank Zap­pa Reveal Them­selves in Cap­ti­vat­ing­ly Ani­mat­ed Inter­views

‘Beast­ie Boys on Being Stu­pid’: An Ani­mat­ed Inter­view From 1985

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist ofthe East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in New York City June 17 for the next install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Elton John Takes Us Through the Creative Process of His Early Hit “Tiny Dancer” (1970)

in Film, Life, Music | June 3rd, 2019

We all have our favorites from Elton John’s vast cat­a­log, and I’ll admit that 1970’s “Tiny Dancer” has nev­er been one of mine.

Call me crass, but I tend to get it con­fused with 1973’s “Can­dle in the Wind,” which John retooled so swift­ly for Princess Diana’s 1997 funer­al.

But then Sir Elton—or “Reg” as close friends and long-time lyri­cist Bernie Taupin call the artist for­mer­ly known as Regi­nald Ken­neth Dwight—has always had a knack for work­ing quick­ly, as Taupin explains above.

I’d nev­er been curi­ous enough to inves­ti­gate, but assumed, cor­rect­ly, that the lyric “seam­stress for the band” referred to an actu­al per­son.

John actu­al­ly seems a bit blasé, explain­ing that it’s about Taupin’s then girl­friend and even­tu­al first wife, Max­ine Feibel­man, whom I must thank for inad­ver­tent­ly sup­ply­ing the title of my favorite track, “The Bitch is Back,” which was her code phrase for “Elton’s in a mood.”

As per Sir Elton, “Tiny Dancer”’s lyrics informed the sound, which is more bal­le­ri­na than pirate smile.

And while the orig­i­nal lin­er notes’ ded­i­ca­tion sug­gests that “Tiny Dancer” is indeed a trib­ute to Feibel­man, three wives lat­er, Taupin revised things a bit, telling author Gavin Edwards:

We came to Cal­i­for­nia in the fall of 1970, and sun­shine radi­at­ed from the pop­u­lace. I was try­ing to cap­ture the spir­it of that time, encap­su­lat­ed by the women we met—especially at the clothes stores up and down the Strip in L.A. They were free spir­its, sexy in hiphug­gers and lacy blous­es, and very ethe­re­al, the way they moved. So dif­fer­ent from what I’d been used to in Eng­land. And they all want­ed to sew patch­es on your jeans. They’d moth­er you and sleep with you—it was the per­fect Oedi­pal com­plex.

Writer-direc­tor Cameron Crowe must’ve absorbed that mes­sage, to go by his mem­o­rable use of the song in Almost Famous’ tour bus scene,

Those com­mu­nal good vibes per­me­ate direc­tor Max Weiland’s win­ning entry in a recent John-spon­sored con­test on The Cut, which, like the open­ing scene of La La Land, gets a lot of mileage from LA’s rep­u­ta­tion for traf­fic jams.

Can tick­et buy­ers expect to find the song fea­tured promi­nent­ly in the just released John biopic, Rock­et­man?

No.

(Just kid­ding. Why else would John and his Rock­et­man dop­pel­gänger, actor Taron Egerton choose that one for a duet at John’s annu­al Oscar par­ty?)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A New Christ­mas Com­mer­cial Takes You on a Sen­ti­men­tal Jour­ney Through Elton John’s Rich Musi­cal Life

Elton John Sings His Clas­sic Hit ‘Your Song’ Through the Years

Elton John Proves He Can Turn any Text into a Song: Watch Him Impro­vise with Lines from Hen­rik Ibsen’s Play, Peer Gynt

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in New York City this June for the next install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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