Last night, I watched If These Walls Could Sing, a documentary about Abbey Road Studios, on Disney+ and had an absolutely ball. What resonated more than anything was the number of musicians who spoke about Abbey Road Studios with a sense of spiritual awe, as though the space itself is a portal to where creativityContinue reading “tunneling to the other side”
Category Archives: creativity
play time
One of my favorite reads from last year was Get Jiro, a graphic novel written by Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose and featuring art by Landon Foss. The graphic novel depicts a wild world in which chefs dominate the social fabric like crime lords. There’s a joyful savagery to the story, which opens with aContinue reading “play time”
ask for what you want
Every time I decide to write about my “Rules to Live By,” this is where I get stuck. It’s a simple enough piece of advice, and yet I’ve struggled with it throughout much of my life. The first time I heard this nugget of wisdom articulated this way, I’d just begun working as an apprenticeContinue reading “ask for what you want”
the doorway
In anticipation of my annual Christmas card, I’ve been tinkering around with songwriting recently. I’ll be honest, it’s miserable and I hate it. The difficultly lies in embracing that fact that I’m not very good at it. As with anything else, you have to allow yourself to be bad at something before you can beContinue reading “the doorway”
recent musings
It’s been a busy couple of weeks. A few highlights:
a recipe for chocolate chip cookies
I was talking to a fellow filmmaker recently who gave me a brilliant metaphor. For years I’ve said that any time I learn a new skill, it becomes another tool in my toolbox. An apt metaphor perhaps, but this filmmaker spoke about the skills she’d developed as ingredients in a recipe. “Imagine making chocolate chipContinue reading “a recipe for chocolate chip cookies”
take care of the work
My dad recently loaned me his copy of The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham, Ron Shelton’s firsthand account of writing and directing one of the greatest sports films ever made. In a beautiful moment of synchronicity, I was listening to the Team Deakins podcast recently, a series of conversations between legendary cinematographerContinue reading “take care of the work”
opening the cabinet
I recently received a notice that I’ve been running my Tumblr page, “The Beginning of Your Meaning, Friend,” for ten years. The original idea was for my Tumblr to function as an “artist’s playground,” a space to accumulate the raw materials that would inform my writing and artwork. Even the title of the blog, stolenContinue reading “opening the cabinet”
don’t dream it, be it…
For three years in college, I played Brad Majors in an annual production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The production, mounted in a seedy bar on the edge of campus, featured full-scale musical numbers and plays host to a slew of University of Dayton-specific callbacks, Easter eggs, and references. Contrary to what you mightContinue reading “don’t dream it, be it…”
steal around
In conversation with Brian Koppelman on The Moment, Paul Schrader talks about the elements he stole from a variety of films to make his 2018 film, First Reformed. “The secret of stealing is that you have to steal around,” Shrader says in reference to the various sources of his material. “You can’t go back toContinue reading “steal around”
joshua chamberlain 