Bigger image -> http://justanothersuperstar.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=1354
♕ Storm coming ♕
Similar structure is under work for
DOING -> INTEREST
GAINING -> DECISION
GIVING -> ACTION
All leading to PROSPERITY
A sneak peek to Top 40 progress
It has been a couple of months since I updated this. For a good reason. I prepared full time to finish my entry to International Songwriting Contest and managed to submit my entry yesterday, just few hours shy the final deadline. This contest only measures skills as a songwriter and singing skills are not important – Which suits me perfectly at this point, because I have yet to start serious training as a singing star.
I was not able to finish exactly the song I have in my mind, because I am such a perfectionist and it is an epic 15 minute extravaganza with very detailed nuances, especially what comes to arrangement and delivery of vocals. Even the sketch is incredible though and should do good and I entered it in Pop/Top 40 category. Realistically, I think my chances to win the whole contest are rather slim, but I would not be surprised to win that subcategory and at minimum I expect to get to semi-finals. Note – this is first time I have entered to songwriting contest, specifically – and this is my FIRST vocal song ever.
My manager/mentor and a good friend says that I resemble one very famous American singer who has deceased long time ago and also another very popular European singer who is doing alright, even after a long career. I will write more in the following weeks and months about my progress and also about creativity, as I have been writing even during this absence, but never got around to post here.
I aim to finish my debut single by end of November, so just a month to go. All music is practically composed and now I am doing arrangement and fine tuning and rewriting lyrics to some portions. This song will be about 15 minutes long and with enough sections and lyrics to cut it to 4-6 hit singles. Main song – the hit – which starts this up, is exactly 3 minutes and 20 seconds, which should do well on playlist rotation. I will shed more light later to the whole thinking process and what went into every conscious choice as every detail there matters and has a reason behind.
Once that debut gets out there and grows into massive proportions, I intend to reveal in minute detail what went in to creating a Billboard #1 hit, because that kind of transparency will be one of my trademarks as an artist and a superstar to be. To let other’s see what I see and to feel what I feel when I am at my best.
I will trail this short re-introductory post with a gallery of my workbench on a computer. I use and have tested probably more music production software, synthesizers and filters than anyone else and as a result have over 20 000 hand picked samples and on top of that hundreds of presets and unique tricks I have come up with to construct the best sounds and very nuanced details and textures that create the unique sound that is present in my music, regardless of genre.
If you have ever been curious to see what goes on into creating a timeless pop song that breaks all the known boundaries of music making and see what a cutting edge modern musician and a producer today sees in front of his/her eyes - below is a few screenshots of my project (actually just a portion of it).
PS. There exist hundreds of hours of unedited video of my composing/creative process. By themselves they are not very interesting for the most part, but have couple ideas to cook something fast paced and cool out of all of that.
Comment: Power and morality
I wanted to sidetrack a bit from my main journal, which focuses on my journey to become a pop star, and do a feature follow-up on a comment I wrote in response to Dimitri Seneca Snowden‘s post social power and morality.
Before I begin, not only that post, but in overall Dimitri’s blog impressed me and has better than average content on wide variety of subjects regarding betterment of our society and so on, so you should definitely check it out. And the above post made me want to write a response, which I also posted there.
Dimitri wrote
[...] there is a great deal of research concerning the link between social power and morality, and most of it suggests that absolute power is not required to change people’s morals; sadly it tends to show that more power leads to less care for others, and less moral behavior. – Dimitri Seneca Snowden
Social Class Rank, Threat Vigilance, and Hostile Reactivity (University of California), a study lead by Michael W. Kraus, discusses in layman’s terms on how very rich and successful people tend to have less perception of empathy and harder time to relate to the people not from their social class. At the same time one can make an argument that most of the middle class cannot relate to highly successful, highly ambitious or wealthy people.
To treat the difference between poor and rich, or those without power and those in power, by default as an unwanted or unjust part of a society seems prejudicial too. My argument is that there are those who get in power through being a good leaders or gain wealth providing something masses want to support, thus making rags to riches stories a reality, rich even richer or unknown talents to reach fame and fortune.
Deeper underlying reason for corruption of any kind is because deep down we all want easy life in some way – to be content. So seeing other people rise into power and reach the riches gives middle-class same time a reason to be jealous, but also (often false) hope that they have a shot for better life if they also exploit every opportunity selfishly.
Again, an argument can be made that people who have poor background and who view themselves to have good intentions and more empathy toward other people than most people they know (one form of feeling superiority as well) might have biased view against power and wealth and people who have both.
Because if a person who has not gained said riches they perhaps think they deserve more than seemingly selfish people they see out there reaping the rewards, it leads into generalization that everyone gaining power and accumulating riches cannot be as good spirited or as unselfish than those who stay poor.
Most are just distracted though and without aim, like I pointed in my first post All good things start somewhere.
Yet, everybody wants to be a star or at least to make their mark right up to their dreams being drowned by the noise that is overwhelming due to the scattered (social) media and dumbed down expectations from every jealous person they encounter, defining the ignostic spirit of our almost spiritless age of mainstream culture – the Zeitgeist-lessness, if you will.
In continuation, it can be also said that the most people without tendencies for leadership or focus in their life are constantly looking for some guidance and direction of what to do next, in order feel that they belong and have some purpose, especially in unknown situations.
Letting people with more initiative or an upper hand get away with exploiting that power in an unjust way without an objection can be seen to degrade your dignity and affects all the way you perceive yourself. It is another thing to look away from wrongs of this world you encounter in your daily life, we all do that from time to time, but to be subjected to it and say nothing, makes you a puppet.
This does not mean that everyone should in every situation bang heads against each other, just to get their way, but it means that even if you choose to adapt temporarily to unjust circumstances, it does not have to mean that you have to accept it.
All being said, life is too complex to make an assumption that more power automatically leads to less caring for other’s well being. While it might be true that to becoming highly successful in any field, you have to be selfish to some degree, there is different degrees and forms of power.
To begin with, you have will power in your own personal life to choose what you do or create next without letting other’s getting in your way. There is political power or financial leverage without malice (Bill Gates). Cultural influence by artists and celebrities. Technological power that changes the way we partake in media and entertainment (Apple) and so on.
In this time and age, the brands, entertainment culture and scattered media has taken our attention and then some. So in some way the culture around us is a power without a clear source that affects our thinking and our way of living and evolving as a society.
I also made an argument in my original comment that public scrutiny and pressure from the masses to reveal wrong-doings counterweights to keep those in power honest. As Dimitri pointed out, and in my own words, this notion is a tad naive, due to life being as complex as it is and the huge gap between poor and rich, but it has some truth to it.
But society needs competition and I think any civilization goes through different extremes to learn what works and what does not work for the common good. In some ways Earth as a whole acts still a bit like a teenager, learning our limits as we go. Thus we will need visionary people in the future, we will need new great leaders to inspire the masses and we also need extremely rich individuals with good intents.
I know I want to be a billionaire.
Because you cannot move the masses without having some power to direct the workforce or attention and money is the most universal form of power there is. It is possible to remove the malice in your intentions and those who come from rags to riches through hard work and perseverance, usually do the better the more unselfish their ultimate goals are, even if you have to be extremely selfish and competitive to get where you are.
Good example of the good-will that lies beneath, is Bill Gates. While he originally just did what he thought he was best at – an operating system that would revolutionize the way we operate modern computers, the real reason why he was so successful was in his character, best summarized by the following quote by Malcolm Gladwell
I firmly believe that 50 years from now he’ll be remembered for his charitable work. No one will even remember what Microsoft is, and all the great entrepreneurs of this era, people will have forgotten Steve Jobs. There will be statues of Gates across the third world and … there’s a reasonable shot … because of his money, we will cure malaria. – Malcolm Gladwell
Anyway, this was my short take on the subject of power and morality and thanks again Dimitri for an interesting posts in general. Without them I might have just kept on dwelling on my journey to become the most successful artist alive. Though, which is what I am doing. It is good to keep an open mind to all ideas, since fame and fortune will lead inevitably to some form of power and influence over thinking masses. Just want to be prepared to how to yield that kind of power and influence well.
- Just Another Superstar
Captured Viewpoint Part II: Paris Hilton is a philosopher of happiness, and Plato just spilled in his lucky pants
I’m waking up every morning
Feeling like I’m the one
Like I’m the sun
With ego like billion tons
But when I’m out there
Bringing the show
Between the mind and a microphone
You come first, I come second
As my pleasure needs your pressure
Cos’ you can lift myself only so far,
It’s the masses that make the star
Between the Mind and a Microphone (2012)
[undisclosed] / Just Another Superstar
Plato just spilled in his lucky pants
In my opinion, every healthy human being has a fundamental born ability to be able to understand the most complex ideas ever coined about our existence or any given subject, no matter how hard. We all share similar physical characteristic to each other, thus in all likelihood we are able to see the world and us, if not completely but for the major part, the same way other people do.
Right? Seems a fair assessment, because without any common ground we would be alien to each other and unable to communicate, systemize or create new life.
Einstein on Reality
I am just throwing this out – how accurately do you think you are able match your awareness and understanding to the greatest minds from the history or even current times? - the likes of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Pablo Picasso, Stephen Hawking and maybe even Eminem‘s and Gaga‘s and the likes of this world, even though they do not fit to this list at all. Do I? Do tell.
My answer:
We can touch, even if it is just in passing, the very same thoughts the greatest thinkers in this world, but it just takes much more effort for an untrained mind.
Which is why most of us choose to be distracted for better part of our lives and waking up right before we die. What kind of life is that, if you do not even try, I ask?
Directing back to greatness and the great artists, whose job is to paint a better picture of our scattered lives, brace and bold stomp new paths to reach the skies, to enable mere mortals to touch the thoughts of the great minds. [3]
[3] Came with that piece of poetry/lyrics on the spot, Just Another Superstar © 2012
Was Plato just lucky to be the first?
I present now an argument that Plato and his posse were not necessarily extraordinary in their thinking in modern standards, whether they were put on pedestal by their peers at the time. The giants whose shoulders we stand on, just happened to be among the first recorded, who captured in writing the existential thinking process we all go through in some point of our lives.
A curious, maybe shocking detail, I do not know: I have not read a single book from any great philosopher, like ever. Very early on I decided to avoid that world and not to bow to any doctrine, ism or set truth and rather constructed my own point of view. Only much later I realized there have been others with same thoughts and dipped in enough for my needs and then turned my passion to become a pop star.
I chose this unique approach of not digesting too much deep thoughts by others for two reasons mainly: To have first hand proof that some ideas about our existence and the way we reason reality around us are universal and available to be found by any aware being, without any prior knowledge. Second reason was more mundane, because every small bit I read from these pedestalized [sic] thinkers, felt like I had read it already and it was all too easy (thus boring) and to me ability to put those thoughts into some action has always been the end-game.
This is the reason why most of us feel an initial almost instinctive jealousy towards talented people, who are destined to succeed or are successful already. The envy derives from the fact that the very same ideas, opinions and the observations stars, celebrities or great artists present, are something we all have gone through some time in our life.
And this feeling of being at the level with big shots, is not a surprise as especially music is mostly about the ways to cope with our life or lack of it. A good kind of distraction, really. In same breath, it is hard to envy really big stars, like Eminem, Britney Spears, Rihanna, Bono, whoever, as they have already made their mark, and for the most aspiring artists it seems so out of reach to even begin to compete.
But if you see someone pushing through at the same ballpark than you, the more of a gut reaction it becomes to contempt, even if that emotion is born out of hidden respect.
You are the artist of your own life. Make it beautiful. (Courtesy of Paris Hilton)
Paris Hilton is a philosopher of happiness
She just might not realize it, yet.
Raise your hands if you are guilty to the following (I know, I am in the past), and this goes to people with ambition of any kind. Have you thought that you should be entitled, nay, that you absolutely deserve, to have a similar recognition than the more successful people in your field of work or art right now, because you feel you could have done the same they have, if you just have had the resources and the same audience to play with?
Which all actually might be true, what comes to the gifts as a thinker and a doer and you might even have objectively the greatest idea in the world.
Here is a follow-up question: What have you done lately, in order to make that desperation or dream (often both), a reality of yours?
The greatest thought without an action, as simple as writing, is in vain, and most artists fail to turn their craft and creed into a money tree, because they lack perseverance and will power to change in a constantly evolving playing field. Meaning, that if you as a creator who wants to succeed and make your mark, are not able to plant whatever the vision, beauty and perception you might have, to the soils of any given generation, or not willing to adapt to the climate we live in – to spirit of the times – reflecting and communicating with modern culture and pop culture, then those thoughts will be lost, like tears in rain.
Each distinct era ultimately repeats the same questions and the same answers and comes up with the same understanding and wisdom about our existence as a species, while the science broadens our horizons of what the universe is and what is our place in it as a human race. This is derived from a naturally born need by every generation to create own stories to reflect the state of being in the current climate, culture, technology and the capabilities we possess.
Right packaging matters
The right packaging is exactly why someone or something becomes highly successful. Sometimes all you sell is packaging, but even mere image has a purpose, since we compose our self-image from scattered thoughts and everything we perceive will enhance or redact from that image. The experiences that allow us to express ourselves better, lets us connect and communicate and most importantly to be understood by our peers, gets usually the most of our attention. We all want to be respected and loved and a few among us want to be stars.
You might agree without thinking with the statement that for example Paris Hilton or Kimye West all have very little substance to contribute to the culture, but they have as much right for happiness, than anyone else and the fact is that these people are already out there pushing their presence without a shame – wisdom or no wisdom. A world without celebrities and big egos, would be a very dull place, but if all you as an audience do, is to live through other people’s lives, your contribution to the society is even less.
On a personal note, I went through this kind of thinking about my worth as an artist, with a bloated ego and narcissistic tendencies, when I was a teen and a bit after that too (I mean, who has not?) and through time started more and more treat my personality and voice (both figuratively and physically) as a product, that can be trained, molded and sold to masses.
At the first my motivation to succeed was purely selfish and I thought, I chose this job, saying – “I deserve to be famous and successful, because I am the best, fuck the rest“, then turned the ego slowly over the years (even though I am still pretty young) into an engine, with a realization that deep down I want to do this and to be heard by the masses, because my job chose me – to inspire people through music, stories and so much more.
Even deeper reason to want to be a superstar, and I think this holds true to any great one’s out there already or gone, is the feeling of having more to give to this world than anyone else you know, and the only way you can think of living a “normal” (as normal a celebrity can) happy life is to become famous and reach the audience you feel is within your reach.
I went through the following internal dialogue in many, many occasions, until finally nailing it:
The drive that keeps me awake, the ambition to be the best at what you do – I realized that this pressure would never go away and only grows stronger the more you fight against. It would either push me down or lift me up and it was up to me to decide what it was going to be.
Skipping few beats – I then went to the depths of my mind, as deep as you could get, to embrace the fears, the doubts, the turmoil, and let it all try and crush me, or so it thought, just to understand people without hope, and then I turned that drive into a creative force that makes me an artist and a person I am today.
Strong and adamant, also content, just trying to get so much more.
All ambition comes from the following force – if you know that you have something of worth to give to the world and you do not push it out in thoughts, in action, in sights and sounds, with all your presence – the face and the voice all the way to how you look and your life choices… You suffocate.
To an ambitious mind, the only way to breath is to get heard.
There is no simpler way of putting it.
- Just Another Superstar
PS. Even though I go fairly deep here to the thinking process, when I come out as a performing artist elsewhere, it is a whole another world with much more in-your-face package that can be digested in an instant, yet leaves wanting more. But I thought to try and become the first major artist, who reveals in detail how it all was done from scratch to Grammys, while the dream is being realized.
Or at least reveal everything in a timely fashion, as long as it does not take away from the X-factor you must bring with you to the pro leagues. If you want to be a professional artist, you have to detach yourself from the creative work – and treat everything like any other job. Otherwise you are in risk of becoming burned out.
PPS. One more afterthought, there are many artists who have great talent with a lot of passion and sometimes blind rage against watered down wannabes, who have a strong ego and an easily identifiable image, which has been marketed well to the masses by the music industry. Very few can combine both worlds and be able to package the passion that drives us to be the best at what we do, into to a pop product and treat it like a business, which just happens to be based on art. Those who do, are true stars.
Captured Viewpoint Part I: What would Beethoven do?
Captured Viewpoint Part I: What would Beethoven do?
My life, my awareness as a part of universe,
Thus awareness of the universe itself,
Is no more than a bypassing state.
My art is more alive than I am,
More alive than my thoughts,
More alive than my awareness as a being.
I’m already dead in the eyes of the world.
In fact we all are dead in the moment we are born.
Alone in our thoughts.
Art, my art, is a state of reality bundled together.
As a captured viewpoint.
My art is more alive than I am,
Since you at the very moment
Are affected by these exact vibrations in your eardrum.
As you experience these vibrations,
I’m indirectly more alive than I was at the moment I created this experience.
Thus my art is more alive than I am, or ever will be.
My friend, in the eyes of the universe you are already dead,
You are no more than a bypassing state.
And so am I
Captured Viewpoint (2001)
[undisclosed] / Just Another Superstar
What would Beethoven do?
Above are the lyrics for my song “Captured Viewpoint”, I composed in 2001, and which is now used to demonstrate how minute details add to the overall tone of any piece of music – hopefully evident in the video, which is just a simple capture of the original way this particular song was composed, and how it looks from a pragmatic perspective as a musician who has to put these beats, sounds and progressions into action through a restricted, but in right hands a powerful tool [1]
[1] Captured Viewpoint was originally made with (now obsolete) Impulse Tracker, and thought Renoise (software used in the video) was a good alternative to show how most of my projects before 2002 looked when producing. The video is not completely truthful take, as the post-processing work for individual tracks had often much bigger role to get to a specific sound.
It can be also said that in the early modern years of computerized composing and rapid exchange of knowledge due to rise of Internet (especially in late 1990′s), the rudimentary and limited tools dictated more than often the kind of music you could and would make, acting at the same time as a catalyst to find more and more outlandish sound seemingly not possible with given instruments at a first glance.
The subject of using modern tools for electronic music like a contemporary composer who does not bow to any doctrines, however, in its extensiveness, will be a scope of another article altogether in the future, which will dissect in detail, a song or two I have made in the past. Now this piece (out of about 1000) just sheds a bit more light on how limitations make us try harder to exceed the set standards on any field.
To shift this week’s essay (which is split to two parts I should mention) to proper focus and kick in a high gear, below is one quote from a short, but an insightful post – The flickering moments of greatness.
[When] the artist sees a vision and is compelled to communicate it, he becomes a conduit of an experience that metamorphoses with the viewer, [while] the viewer may see a completely different experience from that of the artist. - amonikabyanyuvva
So much truth in above words… The spectator ultimately decides what the given piece means to them, but I would go even further and make a statement that ideas and creations that truly surface and become a part of our cultural heritage, may be seen to manifest themselves to be in some way even more alive through other people who are inspired and affected by the said creations, than the person at the moment they created the experience.
One can make a counter-argument though that when you go through a process of creating with passionate fervor, those are the moments you feel to be the most alive, while the outcome in at instant is just a possibility of an idea or experience that may or may not live through the audience it touches.
At the same time immediately one has produced something unique, then that something becomes an object even to the artist, which turns from creator to spectator in a repeating cycle throughout the creative process, which ends after any particular piece or even part of it has been finished.
Whether you paint with your life, your voice or your words, after every brush stroke, the painter turns momentarily into a spectator – and a very critical one in the most cases.
I guess that inevitable ending of the creative process, the final rush to finish a piece of work to feel for a moment that you have once again reached the height you can reach, makes us at the same time almost immediately feel empty inside – with this questions in front of us: What now? The very same feeling most high caliber athletes often go through after breaking a record or winning a major event.
So artists are at the same time part of the audience to their own work and even that view, as close it is, may be skewed and the more people start constructing a common theme around artist’s work, franchise or a piece of culture, the more the commonly accepted idea of what it is supposed to mean, becomes the norm, regardless of what the original intent by the creator was.
This goes on to say that audience as a whole decides through their actions, thoughts and derivative works how anything we create is interpreted or adapted. Art and music in particular can be seen as a captured viewpoint, a limited window for a particular mind trying to understand and organize the reality in them and around them to not only free themselves, but to let others see what they saw, just from a different perspective.
What would Beethoven do?
My question to all artists out there is to choose from the following two extreme scenarios:
Would you want every single spectator to experience your creative work, performance or art in the exactly same fashion and the level of understanding you originally intended, but never with new eyes? In effect they would see exactly what you see.
Or, would you rather have those same people each have a unique, subjective experience dictated by their life and level of awareness, like we do, but never exactly the way you intended? In effect you would never be completely understood.
While the answer might be obvious and the latter scenario is almost a caricature of the current reality everyone lives in, whether we consider ourselves artists or not, I would say that the opposite is actually true what comes to the understanding part.
The more spectators there are and the more popular and visible a work, franchise or a person grows, the clearer the perception and the original intent of the raw talent behind the works becomes, despite how everything is adapted or recycled. A few correlations from the history: Beethoven, Mozart and Vivaldi can be seen as rock-stars of their time and their music was considered modern, maybe even radical at the time. Only after hundreds of years, their masterpieces have grown to be part of the culture as much as they have, due to digital cultural revolution. And while the minds that created these works are long gone, their work lives on with a renewed life.
Here is a little thought play for you: What you think, for example Beethoven would have had to say about how his music is used these days?
As much as copyright laws are important, even with their current ebbs and flows especially within music industry, the rise of digital era has enabled art and entertainment evolve the way it has with almost endless possibilities. Mass is needed to build a basic foundation for something greater than the sum of its parts. Same time due to easy way to copy, re-create and adapt any digital content (and soon even real products with 3D printing) the creators, artists and music makers of our generation face for the first time in human history the same pains every parent has had to endure since the dawn of time – letting go of their children when they grow up. [2]
[2] Much later I might dig deeper onto those growing pains of talented creators fighting in the sidelines scraping by and how consumers may in the future benefit directly from the success they help to create. (Just a little teaser what goes by)
Meaning that while creators have automatically the copyright for their work, we have literally no saying what people do with our works and this is exemplified the more popular artist becomes, apparent in the countless parodies, remixes, mashups and and so forth. Mass culture and viral media, as it is today, grants all people or ideas similar chances to get exposure and to be heard and logically best one’s should rise more easily to the top. This is obviously not the case always, but even the mock competition and cries to have more followers, real or not, makes us try even harder, which in effect at its best, makes a civilization also try harder to survive, evolve and expand.
This is a bit of a stretch, but from time to time somewhere, out of the blue, someone comes and says, “We can do things better than this”. Even though, the most we seem produce to enrich “culture”, is bland, boring, predictable and plain garbage. But hey, you can think it this way too – to cultivate that cream of the crop you need some dung too [pun intended].
To quote myself, I pointed out in my post “Without a surface there is no depth…“
To an outsider it often looks redundant, even counter-intuitive for productivity, to finesse certain piece […] ten hours straight […] then scrapping it one instant, because it was not good enough.
[…] what really happened, is that he essentially trained his own mind to be more attuned to the details. […] And then this artist goes on and creates afterwards a masterpiece from scratch in five minutes.
And in my first post “All good things start from somewhere“
Still, to me it has always been about constantly raising the bar in every way what comes to quality, not about quantity for the sake of it, but to get to the level where creativity is as easy as breathing you have to produce, produce, produce.
Above thoughts can be adapted to mean also our society, culture, sub-cultures and cliques within society. Without mass there cannot be contrast between ordinary and extraordinary that leads to greatness, for which without an evolutionary spirit of a civilization would drift apart.
This leads to a thought that great feats and outdoing yourself, no matter how irrational they might seem at first, serve some purpose like climbing to a mountain – why? – Because it is there. In this regard, Jackasses of this world has their place in culture as much as or high arts, high-art trash (for the record, I liked this film) or completely out of this world.
- Just Another Superstar
Continue to Part II: Paris Hilton is a philosopher of Happiness, and Plato just spilled in his lucky pants
♫ Broaden Horizons 3: “We should have sent a poet” ▶
Field of Stars from our own Milky Way
Courtesy of ESA/NASA
In the light of Curiosity, here is a different kind of selection of videos and music to remind us of that insatiable need to know who we are and what is our place in this vast universe.
On a personal note, I am not sure where my curiosity for cosmology and metaphysics came from, but I guess it is natural for any person to ask these same questions, let alone for an eager child to try and understand why we exist in the first place and what the universe around us really is?
At the same time it is the most exciting to touch the infinity in your thoughts, yet the most frightening, as it makes us feel very small.
At the age of five or six, while I began to harness all the capabilities I thought were within my grasp at the time; starting from telepathy (failed) to flying (also failed, but it was fun to try!) to imagination (success!), was also the period, when as a first mental feat I wrapped my mind around the concept of infinity during one sleepless summer night.
You know, the age-old dilemma: If this universe has a finite amount of energy and thus a finite size [1], then what lies beyond? At the same time it is the most exciting to touch the infinity in your thoughts, yet the most frightening, as it makes us feel very small.
Which is why we need distractions to keep us sane.
Not only I kind of got the answers to these questions already then, but found I could tackle anything I set my mind onto, with same kind of immediacy of understanding, and bring the beauty I saw out in a way everyone can digest and be inspired by. Ego aside, that is another long story altogether, just had to nurture this gift the longest time, before I felt I am ready to come forth with a full force.
All that brings us to this week’s Broaden (Your) Horizons Playlist, which is inspired by space exploration in general and those curious thoughts about our own existence that nag us when we are young, but somehow forget when we grow – until someone or something, like Curiosity, comes and occasionally reminds us of the beauty that lies beyond.
It is not the dead rocks that get us going, but our ability to expand.
Now to the playlist, which starts aptly by growth of life in a form of ”The Nest That Sailed The Sky“, with ethereal music by Peter Gabriel that is directing, quite literally the flow of the one of the most beautiful computer generated videos in the recent years, produced by digital artist Glenn Marshall.
This continues with bits from various inspiring movies that give us hope as a species, while toying with our imagination: Including music from Inception and Sphere and the famous “Adagio in D minor” by John Murphy as a backdrop for the most gripping scene in Sunshine, leading us into a perhaps the most memorable and the most poetic scenes and lines in the movie history – “Like tears in rain” in Blade Runner.
Finally, this short, but hopefully a thought-provoking playlist tails with the most stunning time lapse video of Earth as seen from ISS space station, with a hypnotizing soundtrack and ends with a scene that starts the movie Contact, from which the quote “We [They] should have sent a poet“ is also from.
(Playlist) ▶Broaden Horizons 3: “We should have sent a poet”
Biography of Just Another Superstar or “Imagine Kanyeminem mating with Bjork seven years in Tibet, while listening Star Guitar composed by Mozart on a speedball…”
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[UNDISCLOSED] / Just Another Superstar (JAS) is currently preparing to release all music he or she (from now on he as a gender-neutral pronoun) has produced as [undisclosed] and everything he has worked on as [undisclosed], from texts to digital art, as a massive music and media compilation that may turn out to be the largest in the history by one artist. This release will contain anywhere from 80 to 120 hours of original electronic music from all genres ranging from techno to breaks to to game music, ambient and avant-garde pieces. JAS fell in love with a sound and harmonies at the age of four, when he was travelling during a summer on a small boat in a busy Northern harbor somewhere in this planet, where he was captivated by the sounds of ocean, seagulls and the large freight ships with their big engines and loud sonorous horns; and to the way everything resonated with his mesmerizing voice, when he was humming in harmony. Inspired by all of this, JAS began composing impromptu melodies on piano without any prior knowledge of music theory or notation; and also with any objects he could get hands onto from egg slicers [sic] to tin cans. He tried to get to study music when he was seven years old, but was not accepted for not having neither flexible enough fingers required to start formal training or naturally gifted singing voice. This minor setback did not let him down the slightest, and while JAS waited technology to pick up a speed to match the vision he had as an electronic musician, he started planning his life’s work and legacy – the kind of music and the message he ultimately would want to deliver as an artist, performer and a star, Between the ages 10 – 12 JAS decided to pursue music as a lifetime profession regardless of anything else he might do, and decided to become the most influential artist alive upon viewing Aphex Twin‘s music video “On”, “Flashback” by Laurent Garnier,“Papua New Guinea” by Future Sound of London, and especially Bjork’s “Hyperballad” & Moby’s “Go”; and consecutively set to become the best entertaining artist in the history and break all the existing records, after viewing Michael Jackson perform “Billie Jean” live. Before JAS started making own music, he was heavily influenced by Vangelis and Blade Runner sonndtrack (he used to leave playing on a repeat while sleeping), Jean Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dreams and works by 8-bit (SID) game music composers Ben Daglish and Chris Huelsbeck among many others. Later as a young teen he got into techno, drum and bass, house and rave culture through MTV’s Party Zone and was introduced to illegal and legal raves both in USA and Europe, while admiring pioneers of electronic music: artists and DJs like Carl Craig, Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin, Ken Ishii, Kevin Saunderson, DJ Rolando, Maurizio, Ed Rush & Optical, Art of Noise, Bassface Sascha, CJ Bolland, Massive Attack, The Prodigy and Underworld, while picking influences also from baroque music and legends like Henry Purcell and Mozart. JAS started composing music on a computer at the age 12, and after three months, he released independently two singles, which he then sent to a popular young-adults dance music show, which played them both immediately. It did not result into anything significant at the time, but Just Another Superstar was onto something. Career was set. In the following few months JAS produced music enough for his first two albums to be released later in the future, and did close to 20 full length albums in the first two years alone, which he then sold online to electronic niche music fans around the globe. Meanwhile this adamant artist would send demos to dozens of record labels around the globe with little to no luck getting any contact back. This changed in the summer of 1998, when JAS reviewed over 300 songs on former MP3.com in a week. This feat and the unique music, banter and an exceptional work ethic was spotted by an indie-music advocate, who then became his mentor and a promoter for free, because he saw big things (and big bucks) in the future for this crazy kiddo. [A company] owned by this promoter then streamed the popular exclusive web radio for JAS from 2001 to 2004 non-stop, before dot-com bust forced their operations to be shut down for many years. The radio boasted close to 50 000 recurring listeners with over 30 hour playlist and hit SHOUTcast top 100 list as the only station with music from just one artist. Skip some years later, especially after Michael Jackson passed away, JAS is now changing gears completely to emerge from shadows to the spotlights to conquer pop landscape for good and fill the boots of the greats as a performing artist who combines philosophy with pop music and then some. While he is still nobody and does not have much momentum elsewhere yet, he is packing a punch with more ammo than any other artist I know of from past or present. This gradual change from marginal sound to pop music is apparent in the songs that shaped his newfound direction one after another: “We Come One” by Faithless, “Until The End Of Time” by 2pac, “Star Guitar”by The Chemical Brothers, “Can We Get Much Higher” by Kanye West, “You Can’t Hold The Torch” by Busta Rhymes, and “Lose Yourself”by Eminem and “Everytime” by Britney Spears, Furthermore, when Just Another Superstar was laying ground work for his debut during the last five years or so, he got a lot of direct influence from music in TV series, movies and games, like 24, Shield, Friday Night Lights, Grey’s Anatomy, Southland Tales, GTA, Need For Speed and countless Hollywood films. All of this aims to a pop culture franchise – [undisclosed] that spans all entertainment culture and is based on an original business model, which shares wealth with those who partake creating it, even if by being just a fan and a consumer. These texts are one part of this powerful poetic performance, which has been boiling behind the scenes, and which I have had a privilege to observe the better last decade, and it is unfolding right now in front of your eyes. The music and songs you will hear soon enough, I presume, once they are recorded, but if asked how I would describe Just Another Superstars’ music he wants to put out as a pop artist in contrast to being instrumentalist and experimental electronic musician in the past. Let me put it this way – imagine Kanyeminem mating with Bjork seven years in Tibet, while listening Star Guitar composed by Mozart on a speedball, then yeah, something like that and yet something else. He says it better and love this quote by JAS “So far electronic music has been all about sound and faceless mind-connection and hip hop all about rhythm and emotional-connection with an in-your-face attitude. I combine those both worlds, and bring a bit of philosophy into the mixture.” This (anonymous for the time being) biography has been edited and fact-checked by JAS. - MENTOR |
Blast from the Past: Chat-logs (2004): “enligthenment” is 98% distraction and 2% miracle, and those who don’t believe in miracles must not be paying much attention…
The following chat-logs are short excerpts from a series of separate private conversations that took place likely sometime in 2004. As I gradually go through all of the old correspondence, I might post the most interesting bits and pieces from time to time in this Blast from the Past series. The names have been changed to keep this anonymous for the time being and minor edits have been made to make these easier to read. Don’t know if we broke any speed-typing records, but yeah, awkwardly funny typos slammed back and forth in a happy unison give a gist of one of those rare inspirational moments that take you in completely without you even realizing it, until all has taken place.
My chat-name here is changed to TVOR (The Voice of Reason) and MENTOR is my promoter, mentor (duh!) and my manager-to-be; who found my music in 1998 through former mp3.com.
From DAY 1
[03:34 pm] MENTOR: “the great philosopher TVOR, is right, he’s always right”
[03:34 pm] TVOR: it’s dragon time
[03:37 pm] MENTOR: yes sir
[03:27 am] MENTOR: reminds me of Ted Turner or Rupert gaining political power, kinda scary, media powers should NEVER be allowed to run for political offices, they’re too egotistical
[03:27 am] TVOR: true
[03:27 am] TVOR: politics and ego don’t mix
[03:28 am] TVOR: different league
[03:28 am] MENTOR: I think politicians are like doctors/clergy – you are born with that gene
[03:28 am] TVOR: yet politics and ego mix to some degree, but the problem is that those who are able to be good politicians don’t want to and those who are bad want to.. at least that’s the general consensus.. the bottom line, people are the problem 
[03:29 am] MENTOR: why would anyone WANT to do something like that?
[03:29 am] TVOR: what that?
[03:29] MENTOR: there’s no creativity or inspiration from the past, like I’m going to say I want to be just like a politician
[03:30 am] MENTOR: people want to be like sports stars or artists
[03:30 am] TVOR: generalization.. we all want respect, mass media has just magnified that trait to the extreme
[03:31 am] MENTOR: governments and politicians HAVE tough jobs which 99.9% of us don’t want to even consider..
[03:31 am] TVOR: indeed
[03:31 am] TVOR: well, everyone specializes on some certain area they want to be good at and contribute to the society
[03:32 am] TVOR: or likely to themselves and leftovers are for society
[03:33 am] MENTOR: I just watched the Giuliani movie, and said to myself, why would anyone set themselves up like that, YET he did do some great things according to half the people, so you never win, ya know???
[03:34 am] MENTOR: I actually hate politics
[03:34 am] MENTOR: like I said, there’s no creativity whatsoever in the mix, it’s boring, harsh, negative,
[03:34 am] MENTOR: like YOU said – distracting
[03:35 am] MENTOR: YET 97.9% of the people, are engrossed in it
[03:35 am] MENTOR: that leaves just about 2% of the people who actually do anything
[03:36 am] MENTOR: only when something like 9-11, a brutal murder, suffering, do people pay attention
[03:37 am] MENTOR: and want answers
[03:37 am] MENTOR: I don’t get it
[03:38 am] TVOR: it’s because human creature, we.. are lazy and greedy.. every problem of society and human nature comes from collision between laziness and greediness
[03:38 am] TVOR: u work hard at anything.. and a success in anything feels success only because it was hard to achieve
[03:39 am] MENTOR: I agree
[03:39 am] MENTOR: even with success comes a ton of negativity and jealousy
[03:40 am] MENTOR: the term ‘overnight success’ doesn’t exist except with the lottery
[03:40 am] MENTOR: or boybands:)
[03:40 am] TVOR: there’s always some sort of balance between things we do.. we oscillate between being satisfied and being not… we adapt into anything
[…]
From DAY 2
[02:38 am] TVOR: no, but what comes to the ‘if’.. part, I don’t need to analyze it.. i just do things.. and everyday, every moment i feell ,, i’ve grown into a belief, into that i am the best, i am the best at whatever i do.. but at the meantime i have grown into a thought that the moment is now.. moment is NOW.. no past nor future, but now.. so whatever happens, happens now, rest doesn’t exist. .but i do feel it has already happened…. constatn dejavu.. the day when i stand out in front of 6,5 billion individuals is just a start.. that is just a start..
just as a rhinoceros.. words words words words
words wrods, worlds, worlds, worlds, my mind is an entertainment platform and by combining my thoughts in media with my music i am one mand walking art and entertainment machine.. THE FUCKING CELEBRITY.. fuck the rest i am the best..
that’s my job, to be EGO.. well it’s not jub, that’s what i am and and if i keep repeating that enough ppl will start EXPECTING my EGO and my thoughts, and they EXPECT me to do certain kind of things.. so UNEXPECTED from me is EXPECTED from me.. it’s my sacrifice to society.. i be naked in front of public, they decide if it’s good for them..
[02:40 am] TVOR: THE CONTRAST between unselfinesh and selfiness
[02:48 am] TVOR: but i’ve been all the way deep and way beyond with that.. i have the psyche. rest is just using my psyche and talent…. pieces will fall in the place..and there is time and place for everything, i do whatever i feel inside my at the moment being best for me..
i’ve gone thru thoughts, thru deep thoughts, thru emotions, thru doubt, thru vanity, thru avarice,, i’ve been deep in those valleys.. now that part is my slave,, my body and my mind and my talent is my slave.. i know exactly what i want to do and how i want to do.. swiping off crap is one part of that.. small ,but one part
.. we all oscillate, u are right there to the point and you are right to the point about sharing it.. this is a one big society..
ha, wealth is good if it is put in rotation.. but if u don’t spend your wealth, it’s killing society, it’s not progressive
selfishness is a powerful resource, because we all are selfish.. and EGO is the main motivator for any progress and any degree, and the only one
heh.. well talk talk,, thoughts need to refined and distilled and transformed into a missiles,, mindbombs.. shows, mindfuck show, music, art, vision, movies, collaboration,, whole wide world with a network of artists, enterntainers etc.. sharing their small piece to 010.. whatever they do, not under any ism, but with a network of likeminded..
[02:50 am] MENTOR: avarice?
[02:50 am] TVOR: greed
[…]
[03:04 am] MENTOR: Nothing gets in our way, but most of us are likely to open up in stages, gradually, we tend to go up in cycles of emotion: after each burst of euphoric realization, we may hit a new and different kind of negativity, the next thing we need to learn to love, But the higher you go the easier it gets
[03:04 am] TVOR: with intelligence, understanding, passion, comes also cynicism and you have to consciously fight against it to pursue your dreams
[03:04 am] MENTOR: YES, it’s a constant struggle/battle man
[03:06 am] MENTOR: the higher you get, the more shit gets in the way, you have to just pay more attention
[03:06 am] MENTOR: that’s all
[03:06 am] MENTOR: it’s all about upbringing
[03:06 am] MENTOR: those who don’t believe in miracles must not be paying much attention:)
[03:07 am] MENTOR: a guy I used to work with said that about 10 years ago
[03:07 am] MENTOR: the smae place a guy said “I used to be a jerk”:)
[03:07 am] MENTOR: keep on keeping on [removed]!!!!
[03:07 am] MENTOR: fuck what else is there to do????
[03:10 am] TVOR: as I see, and i speak only from my experience.. the broader you open, u cut the crap and pay less and less about crap beyond and in front of you.. some tumble, but those who break thru the barrier it’s for good
[03:14 am] TVOR: i don’t know what it is to be non ambitious person.. i guess we all are born as ambitious, but most of people are put thru some much shit that the ambition melts away.. might be, but i can’t tell.. would be refreshing to be someone else for some time..
i like to think thru someone else. to put myself into someone else’s boots and sometimes think myself as an outsider
[03:14 am] TVOR: ah well. enuf incoherent text for now
[03:15 am] TVOR: just one thing.. I do see society as a one big
[03:15 am] TVOR: ‘brain’
[03:16 am] TVOR: and every part has their own place.. and I see functionality and a purpose even in those individuals who ever don’t enlighten in any way or do not share same point of views.. there is not single thruth of any kind.. we all work as a one big society thru communication…
so i am what i am
[03:27 am] TVOR: “gradually, we tend to go up in cycles of emotion: after each burst of euphoric realization, we may hit a new and different kind of negativity, the next thing we need to learn to love, But the higher you go the easier it gets”
rereading that bit.. now i get that last part.. the higher you go the easier it gets to understand, the easier it gets to understand the process of enlightenment and world and life around you
and that paragraph.. well u showed it for me first time now, but three years ago i have gone thru almost exact to 100% thinking process with my own cycle of enlightenment.. it is a cycle and yes there is the doubt and there is the re-enligthenment.. and u repeat that cycle long enough and u rise above that glass roof and world, the arth, the universe is a small dust particle u sometimes caress in your fingertip.. the part, which holds on to constant wire hanging above u, being there deliberately and whenever your ego craps out with anything external all u do is to think that dust particle and u find again that feeling, which is not hidden, but a giant half asleep and half awake…. Thaddeus Golas [1] indeed is another deep connection..
the most gratifying thing after my own cycle has been to find out that i am not the only one to go thru the process as every person who pursues (and everyone does) the ‘truth’, the big ‘something’.. or big ‘nothing’ as it is not a thing but a state..
anyway, anyone who falls into same cycle, will go thru same phases and one major phase is ‘i am the one’
[1] 2012 trivia: I have not read the book in question, but my mentor has
[03:33 am] TVOR: i have grown into my personality and psyche not in order to fulfill myself, but in order to fullfill the world..
i serve the world… needs a lot of finetuning and developing a constant progress.. gotta be frank and honest,, honesty towards ownself is a powerful tool… but uh oh, i need some monty python soon, too much wordio’s
one word about world
ABSURD
remember that
[03:34 am] MENTOR: anyway, I hope I help you out man, that’s all, I look at you abd me as seperating spiritual twins, who the fuck would of ever imaguined we would ever mett you know???
[03:35 am] TVOR: marklar marklar marklar
[03:35] MENTOR: there’s a connection here, and I can’t put my finger on it, all I know is I like chatting with you, 99.9% of the people I meet and try to be friends with aren’t nearly as inspirational and motivbatinf as our friendship
[03:36 am] MENTOR: you get me thinking bigger and better that’s all
[03:36 am] MENTOR: the only other person I can say does that to me is [removed]
[03:36 am] TVOR: small streams grow into a bigger rivers..
[03:37 am] MENTOR: [****] stream babay
[03:37 am] TVOR: MENTOR seems great
[03:37 am] MENTOR: 01
[03:37 am] MENTOR: 0
[03:37 am] MENTOR: ha
[03:37 am] TVOR: obsessions
[03:38 am] TVOR: goals
[03:38 am] TVOR: focus
[03:38 am] TVOR: obssession baby
[03:40 am] TVOR: anyways i don’t need yes-men around me.. i need no-men who can challenge me, my way of thinking, acting whatever..
[03:41 am] TVOR: energy source
[…]
[04:57 am] TVOR: people are like rocks thrown into water.. making waves.. some waves collide and some waves grow together and make bigger waves.. ’tis all about waves
[04:57 am] MENTOR: yes
[04:56 am] MENTOR: it means we’re OK and all we have to do is keep doing what we’ve been doing for the past 7 years
Without a surface there is no depth…
Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci
Headlong
I talked briefly about the importance of nuances when composing music in my post about Chaos and Beauty and the essence of Sprezzatura in my first post. The same approach applies to writing – ideas usually pour in without forewarning and in excess, after long periods of idling about. Sometimes it does pay to be lazy! At its best, perfecting passages is like constructing a very nuanced choreography for a piece of ballet played in our minds and mouths – with thoughts that take a form in words that are first planted on a paper (figuratively speaking in this modern age) and then cultivated into a vivid garden with wisdom and cut to its final form with finesse and flow that takes almost always magnitudes more than the initial thought.
However. the best ideas are often best served raw for an untapped audience and cut to their bone, for others to build upon. And after that you go ahead and raise the bar. How far? As far as you like. Sometimes though, you should go headlong and disregard…
Ghost Dog portrays this headlong attitude throughout an exceptionally rhythmed (not least because of the Asian influenced hip-hop soundtrack by RZA), beautiful and a philosophical movie (by Jim Jarmusch) with a same title, reaching its crescendo in the film’s pivotal scene, which I am not going to spoil for you, but which portrays the ways of the samurai in a brutal yet poetic fashion that was underlined by this quote from Hagakure, spoken in narrative by our protagonist – an African American hit man living in a modern world, but following the ancient samurai warrior code to the bone.
When one has made a decision to kill a person, even if it will be very difficult to succeed by advancing straight ahead, it will not do to think about doing it in a long, roundabout way. The Way of the Samurai is one of immediacy, and it is best to dash in headlong. – Ghost Dog quoting from Hagakure – The Book of the Samurai
Violence aside, that thought can be applied in everything good; moreover, Ghost Dog: The Way of The Samurai is full of similar quotes and can been seen like a carefully crafted poem, and an extended free-form haiku on a screen, which is translated to hip-hop generation in a laconic, almost lethargic fashion, yet with more balls than the biggest Michael Bay blockbusters combined. (As fun they are!). So go ahead and watch Ghost Dog, if beauty, philosophy and poetry from OG‘s like Sun Tzu, get you going!
One of my goals in the middle of pursuing 15 Grammys and 100 million Facebook fans (see, even I did this) [look up the part about tamed Idols in All good things must start somewhere] is to write likely a few books in the following 5 years or so. And on top of that an autobiography, but I might do that with a co-author or two who know my life’s work by heart.
As much as I love English language for its poignancy and beauty and the endless possibilities for a word play, to me words are ultimately, at the end, like sound, a powerful tool to bring forth passion, thoughts, concepts and Logos that pushes beyond the conventional wisdom, while form remains as important as the function; even more so in song-writing, poetry and new media filled with extravagant cries for attention.
There was a time I used to practically live in the libraries reading among everything else – get this – English dictionaries, sometimes from cover to cover in one sitting, no kidding! Yeah, no Guinness World Records were broken as it was not the whole Oxford English collection (*gulp*), and in case you are curious, I prefer American English and Collins Dictionaries that is based on a an extensive library of real life examples and quotes. Yet I have read very little or none of the classics and books you would consider a must-read by anyone who wants to perfect their English language or understanding of common discourse in a literary world, just about everything else from Japanese art of packaging to Confucius to Peter F. Drucker to the history of ancient civilizations.
Only exception are some sonnets from Shakespeare like Venus and Adonis, which I liked. My motivation to read on the all possible genres was to get as much influences from everywhere and everything to use as an artist and an entrepreneur in the future. What matters the most is how I can mix all that knowledge with action, whether it is art, music, popular science or entertainment.
If you just recycle old tricks and restrict your input to one single area or expertise you will stagnate. To truly get the attention of any audience regardless of their taste, and make us feel a little bit more alive while having fun along the ride you have to as a creator, subject yourself to all culture headlong and pick what you can.
Writing
Now I want to dissect a bit about my first post here and reveal some of the intricate creative thinking process behind all that writing and where my attention was at the time.
Example: In the third paragraph, there is a following sentence starting like this: There is naturally a lot of direct and indirect influences as a musician from all forms of culture and entertainment, a lot, to be exact [...]
Curious detail in the latter sentence fragment is the almost redundant use of “a lot”, which seems at first glance to be a pun for puns sake. Which it is partly. But without that repetition the point does not come across with same poignancy it does now, while linking to my musical influences playlist just being a nice bonus as a by-product. In music we compose beats and loops to get a right rhythm for a song and that sense of style and flow applies everything from our breathing to dancing to the way streets are organized in a city.
In music you might have an intro and then the first verse starts with some false starts or silenced parts to build up the momentum and leading into a crescendo along the way. This pattern does not automatically translate to text, but in essence writing in a prosaic with more defined tone has that same kind of quest for harmony and objectively perceived beauty that grows naturally, flows naturally and feels organic, with enough branches for a random reader to tag along and climb higher, all the way to the top to see what I see, to see what you see – an author of any.
Just like in that last paragraph I wrote, there are certain peculiarities, which were absolutely conscious, yet instant choices. In passing, this piece is an experiment and a bit like trying to analyze a process, which you are part of at the very moment. Go ahead, try observing your thinking process – while you are at it. See what I did there? Took you into a loop. Back to the last paragraph: I repeated the word crescendo second time in this post, because it was one overlaying theme I prepare for in future feats.
Another curious point is at the very end - an author of any, which is not a common saying or grammatically correct (I think) – not that it matters (I say, learn the rules to expand them and then break them – form precedes function). That last wording was left as is to accent the preceding thought of giving a reader an easy passage to tree you had grown as an author, yet with multiple ways to proceed. Thus any. At the same time it punctuates, literally, the passages about headlong attitude and cutting through the bone to get to the root of the wisdom. Captured by my motif © “I Already went and did It”
All that, pointing out in a the longest fashion the irony of getting to the point by rushing into every possible direction at the same time, and I just coined up a new word for this concept at this exact moment – I call this concurrent writing process. In more ordinary terms – a free association. My point being that the language makes us what we are as a species and every different detail has a different outcome. Fact is that our perception of reality is a result of complex neurochemical electric cocktail that is fed non-stop by all our senses. We are thus naturally tuned in to get every detail surrounding us to compose our own reality. Details do matter.
Culture in general and sub-cultures with creations of art and entertainment built upon the works done in the past have formed an endless breed of subtext and sub-dialect you can only get if you heavily subject yourself with the surrounding popular phenomenons. Prime example is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In its own right it is witty and funny show and a permanent part of our cultural heritage, if you go that far. The real power of Buffy, however, lies between the lines, as the more you have influenced yourself by the current pop culture, the more you get the in-jokes and references to other works of art and entertainment.
To add something new and noteworthy to the world or even present new ideas you have to learn the common language of the society or a community you want to reach. It is not just English or any other language with written rules, but goes much deeper than that. Without some common ground you cannot as an artist deliver the grand vision you might have to the masses that do not know any better.
Blame-game against dumbed down media leads nowhere and I still want my daily doze of Robot Chicken to counterweight the depths a creator and a thinker must dive into to transcend the ordinary. Thus understanding and embracing popular culture in contrast to high arts, however you might want to define it, is as important. In my eyes they are at the same line.
Without depth there can be no surface and without surface there cannot be a mirror to reflect upon – to connect to – to have a friction with.
We need both.
What comes to writing, the best text is easy to read and looks really easy to write, but in reality it comes from putting your mind into details like that to keep the certain playfulness present no matter the subject. Just like dancing is about seducing either you partner or an audience, or both – writing is the same kind of invisible dance between the lines seducing the reader. It is the underlying beauty that enchants us creators, the music makers, the dreamers of the dreams to put it all out there in way that sticks, and if you have found such beauty you have no right to keep it to yourself.
These sweet spots that hit the exact nerves to capture the attention are based on ambivalence that can go into any direction. This ambiguity is the very reason why for example Mona Lisa is so powerful painting. With a balanced act of giving freedom to see what you want to see, yet directing it at the same time with an uncertainty, yet punch, forcing the spectators to try harder to capture the beauty in front of them that seems to be apparent, almost blatant. Yet something so intricate only those with a similar gift can analyze and dissect it into its basic parts and recreate even something greater.
Great art and the best artists hit those sweet spots at will, due to prolonged constant and conscious effort put into almost unseen details. To an outsider it often looks redundant, even counter-intuitive for productivity, to finesse certain piece, whether it is piece of painting, a composition, or in my case fine tuning a 5 second sound loop with 50 samples ten hours straight to get it just right, and then scrapping it one instant, because it was not good enough. To an untrained eye, it looks like artist in question just wasted ten hours, but what really happened, is that he essentially trained his own mind to be more attuned to the details.
And then this artist goes on and creates afterwards a masterpiece from scratch in five minutes. This kind of deep thinking process, even if it is not visible or apparent to the random spectator, is the exact reason why creators of high caliber, who constantly try to outdo themselves, have such an impact to our society, culture and to individual people who enjoy their works.
How all of the above translates into writing for me? I write and see text or paragraphs sometimes like a series of strings or twines where all words are interconnected to each other in multiple ways. I might look at the paragraph and decide the way sentences are laid out based on the overall shape of the text, treating the words like symbols without meaning.
To elaborate, not only I view the linguistics qualities of any given text, how it all relates to the whole work, the present dynamics between the words, the idioms, sentences, while finessing the flow at the expense of the fair use of grammar; I base a lot of my writing decision to the deeper synesthesic and aesthetic qualities, especially how easy it reads and how it feels in your mouth, being an artist and a musician who wants to get out there and shape this world. You cannot do that with silence (though John Cage might have different opinion.)
As a thinker and a writer, you gotta get to the point, yet give enough ingredients for a keen spectator, regardless of their taste, to go and grow their own garden of thoughts.
When you create and throw everything you got, you don’t care about details, and yet you do, but details just come naturally in a frenzy and you just try to capture the essence of inspiration as fast as you can, thus everything is very erratic.
Right now I am in a middle of an inspired creative moment, thus I do not care too much about details, but rather push through picking up the thoughts as they come to capture the greatness in its rawness…
After that you take the thousand little ideas and siphon out the best to be put into a spotlight with as much detail as necessary to get to the point, in a way nobody else but you can.
Now, even if you were the most single-minded individual, you would still pick those nuances, just unable to pinpoint what it is that makes something a masterpiece.
This goes to say that you cannot replicate a tree without growing it out from a seed and guiding it along the way into its natural form it was always going to be.
This is what creativity is.
- Just Another Superstar
♫ Broaden Horizons 2: Drum and Bass roots ▶
Since everyone is so hyped about dubstep these years, it is only fitting to get to know where its roots are, so I thought to rattle the cages a bit and put together a definite playlist of timeless drum and bass and jungle classics that sweep the floor even after ten years and more. I hope that this weeks Broaden Your Horizons Playlist enlightens a bit why some old-school junglists might look down to dubstep as an immature little brother of drum and bass.
At the time, in 1990′s and around Millennium, drum and bass was just emerging into mainstream culture, and only after you started hearing Amen breaks in shampoo commercials, next generation had to find and define their own PUNK sound to fight against the conformist lifestyle that that stands against everything being young and free is not about. This difference in attitude between older and younger generations never changes.
Now, dig in!
▶ Broaden Your Horizons Drum and Bass playlist
