## Getting ready to give my new talk tomorrow Nerd, Know Thyself at UXWeek. Emotional self-awareness is what the web and the economy need most. I’ll be giving a longer keynote version at Web Development South in Sydney this Fall. If you’d like to book it, get in touch.
the structure of the music industry is rooted in a corporate structure. It’s a quarterly business, but art is not a quarterly business. At Columbia, if Beyoncé didn’t deliver a record one year, for whatever reason, that really affected the whole economics of the company. And it’s impossible to build a music company as if you were selling shoes.
I remember when the bankers came in to meet with my boss when I worked at New Line Cinema. They wanted to know about the second quarter films slated this year and then were going to compare them to last years second quarter. And I was only 24 and had only worked there for less than a year but it was clear to me that they had no idea what they were talking about. We weren’t making pencils, or as Rick Rubin puts it, shoes. The desire for predictability means the bankers want to decrease risk. But you decrease risk really differently in making art. Value isn’t created by avoiding risk. And as you would in a business, any business, you have to take the right risk to grow and benefit. And you have to keep taking risk to get good at it. And the knowing of art is not a thinking knowing. It is a feeling knowing. That’s where the value is.
Yesterday at the screening and feminist conversation (Mother Whore Complex) I hosted for Jill Soloway’s new film Afternoon Delight Jill told us a story. An investor asked her to take a scene out. It was a scene in which the two leads happen to meet in the bathroom, one is looking for a tampon. They discover they are synced. Jill couldn’t believe it “It’s a feminist art film and you’re asking me to take the menstruation scene out?” There was a huge laugh. Such discomfort with something so humdrum. So basic. Something women generally can’t escape.The request proved the point of the film.
“Where do they think the children come from?” I asked, getting another laugh. But I didn’t know that that was the day, yesterday, though I was sure I was menstruating too, when I would fail to have a period for the first time. And I didn’t know just how hard it would be more me to say even the next day. It marks a loss for me. And as sad as it is, it took me three quarters of the day to have the courage to post this. Because it might make someone else uncomfortable. But someone is always uncomfortable. And I am becoming a different kind of woman.
More: Everything Is Subject to Change #EISTC
Holy crap. I just tried to stop a crime in progress about half an hour ago. I saw a young woman walking toward me on Telegraph in Temescal neighbourhood of Oakland. Broad daylight. Mid-afternoonShe was carrying some yoga mats and agitated and asking people to stop this kid on a bike that just was going by so I ran into the street after him. He’d grabbed her iphone. It’s happening a lot here. Someone told me the cops call it “Apple picking.” Something like 500x last year in a mile of that place. I ran after him and got my hand on the seat of the bike but just just missed a steady grip by about half a second. So now I now: never use earphone when walking around here or talk on my phone if people are around. I’ve heard too many stories and seen it myself now. I asked the coffee shop we were in front of- Arbor- to put up a sign to let people know. They said this happens all the time and that someone smashed in all the car windows the other day on the street. But they didn’t seem inclined to put up a sign.
It was weird that I didn’t even think about running after the kid. I only just got here from being back in Canada recently and it took a few minutes before I remembered that most American of words: gun.
What if that kid had a gun? Was I an idiot for running after him? He just seemed like a kid, maybe 12 maybe as old as 15 and he seemed harmless. But no matter how small or unlikely the situation it’s a possibility in America. A bad possibility. One that I regret. Like I said to the people when I was out of breath from chasing him and then remembered guns. “Let people make their mistakes with knives. Or nothing.”
If you know anyone in Oakland please spread the word. I only knew to run after this kid and to put my phone away because I’d heard about this as a thing that is happening all the time. Don’t walk around with your iphone visible. Plus then we can actually have time to notice and smile at each other.
Update August 8th: I’ve just learned that a friend. A 6’2″ tall friend was kicked in the eye the other night in San Francisco in order to take his phone. He just posted this to Facebook:
Please tell people they shouldn’t kick another person in the eye. Also, please tell people who have a say in the economy that a system in which inequalities continue to grow and rents keep rising makes it more likely that someone who is 6’2″ might be kicked in the eye in exchange for a cell phone that can be sold on the street.
I have loved living in both the US and in Canada but this is the first moment I’ve asked myself whether or not it’s really possible to keep doing so.
“One slap on the wrist for playing by ear and I went underground for 10 years.” Joni Mitchell played music when she was very young and then a piano teacher smacked her with a ruler (not an unusual practice at the time) when she began to play by ear at one lesson rather than “have the masters under [her] fingers] as she reported in her CBC interview. That shaming and discouraging attitude and most of all the thinking and quibbling that comes with that way of interacting sent her creative self and spirit hiding underground. She didn’t try music again for 10 years. That’s what I take her to mean by what she talks about at 29:00 above when she discusses why she produced herself. I used to sit at the piano when I was very young and play my feelings. One of my clearest, purest emotional moments was there. Then my mum heard me and laughed at me or commented.
Read on »
A recent current affairs program on CBC Radio ran a general news story on The Disappearing Butch. And yes the Canadian government funds the wonderful CBC which I sometimes get to contribute to. I also get to end sentences with prepositions when I feel like it.
While this is a story I have seen some of from living in the queer community, I’m not used to seeing these bits of my life in the mainstream press. It’s sort of stunning to me. In a good way. In fact, it’s a moment for me. I’m realizing: I really don’t expect the general media or conversation to get it, see or even consider the reality of our lives. And I mean like even at the basic level or how many queer people see themselves. We pretty much just see a lot of what we get chunked as, databased as, filed away as. You know the central casting view of your life. Which, let’s face it, general media does to just about anyone. And this is stunning to me because my work is pretty much about creating and speaking to a larger audience/community. This shows me I’ve been assuming it’s not possible and that that is not a helpful assumption. I don’t have to stop at gay 101. I can just work from nuance and detail of the real stories and take people with me.
The US now has 13 states with same-sex marriage equality with just a few more than that banning employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
But I did hear that one of my favourite people in the world, who is almost 11 and a Californian, just had a lesson on gender at school based around questions like “What are things people say boys/girls don’t do? Is that true?”
And no, I don’t see myself as butch. But that doesn’t stop many people from presuming.
Great piece by the wonderful comic, writer and director Taylor Negron which captures the best of Sandra Bernhard and her impact. Sandra’s work had a huge influence on me and it’s fair to say that I wouldn’t be performing today if not for her groundbreaking solo show Without You I’m Nothing
Like many innovators, much of what she did unique and edgy was rooted in the context of the time. Taylor Negron’s piece captures that beautifully. He’s a wonderful performer too. If you get a chance to see him live too, jump at it.
Toni Morrison patiently schooling Charlie Rose on privilege and offensive questions:
If I’m going to say when are you going to write about Black people to a white writer? If that’s a legitimate question to a white writer then it is a legitimate question to me? I just don’t think it is….As if our lives have no meaning without the white gaze.
The rhythm starts building into this at 2:47 but watch the whole thing. I especially like the raised brow when she says “journalist” to him. Her absolutely profound self-legitimacy of voice (among other things) is inspiring to me. Her standing in her self is beautiful. She holds the moment. She does not seek only to make him comfortable. She does not avoid what is at stake. She does not cede herself in explanation. She holds the space and it is the interviewer who must understand. Toni Morrison creates a very rare genuine moment on television. Video after the jump. I’m trying to keep the pages concise.
April 24, 2013
Yesterday I met with some young entrepreneurs from France. They were nothing like the coneheads. They seemed more kind and soft and human than most young entrepreneurs I see around the Bay Area today. They were excited about their adventure; wanting to connect people and see the car sharing they organized as secondary. It seemed it was still an adventure to them and not a way to seem grown up or important or get wealthy as soon as possible. I took them to my favourite place in Potrero Hill which also happens to be French. But we had burgers. The best ones in San Francisco. The most interesting thing to me about their car sharing business is that people can choose to not charge someone for a ride. What does it mean when we don't charge each other? When do people need to value their work and time by asking for more and when do people discover there's something precious and new they can't get by charging and measuring every thing they do?
Dave Goebel and I worked on a play together recently. He was in the band. I really wanted a drumming lesson from the moment we started hanging out.
I was just reading Austin Kleon’s lovely lovely blog, once again and so enjoying how he shares the process of how he works (not to mention the clean design which I always covet). And I am also loving the way Austin has stayed with it. I can see how it feeds him and anchors some of his process. He seems to have a few creative anchors (his notebooks for one). I do too and I’d like to begin sharing them.
I am resolved to blog more often. So I’m jumping right back in. But I’ll be honest: one of the the things that’s kept me from blogging more in the past is that I really want to make changes to this site. And I haven’t figured out how to do that yet.
Sample of questions that have gone through my head on a regular basis:
Ok. That’s a sampling. But I realize none of these questions (all of which remain unanswered) is helping me do the most important thing blogging can: regularly write in the open and stay connected to my own explorations. So, I’m just going to write posts. Perhaps they will be small ones. They probably should be small ones. But something regular to get my regular thoughts more shapely and more a part of the public conversation. I write and speak a great deal, but I’d like to have a more regular practice here. I’d also like to stay with myself a little more. I find that too much time on social media pages, while a wonderful way to be social, converse quickly and see new things, is also a way to not let my brain and body practice going much deeper into something. I do that for longer stories I’m telling on stage more and more often but then all my work can be ephemeral or on tape which remains unshared until it’s gone through and edited.
I’ve been running pretty regularly since 2010. With tiny, regular practice it’s become something I really look forward to. While I’ve written online in some form since before blogging software back in 1997, I haven’t been so regular at it since twitter and facebook have gotten much of my writing time.
And I’ve found that when I’m really really stuck. Just saying exactly what’s occurring to me out loud is a start. It’s also being with exactly what’s going on so it sort of tricks me into being in the present. And then, of course, I feel more relaxed and just fine, even if what I had to say isn’t the best work I’ve ever done. It’s a start. Now that I think back, it’s what I did with my very very first blog post a long time ago after talking with Jason Kottke about it.
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