Archive for February, 2012
Joy, Surprise, and Wonder on the Skytrain
Somehow I get to have co-creator credit with barefootwriter for this wonderful twitter-feed devoted to user-submitted tales of transit in Vancouver, BC.
The Muse
I’m not a great creative individual by any stretch, but I do respect my muse and do *not* screw with it.
My friend kat passed along this letter by musician Nick Cave, which he wrote to MTV in 1996, in which he explained that his muse was “not a horse.”
“My relationship with my muse is a delicate one at the best of times and I feel that it is my duty to protect her from influences that may offend her fragile nature. She comes to me with the gift of song and in return I treat her with the respect I feel she deserves — in this case this means not subjecting her to the indignities of judgement and competition. My muse is not a horse and I am in no horse race and if indeed she was, still I would not harness her to this tumbrel — this bloody cart of severed heads and glittering prizes. My muse may spook! May bolt! May abandon me completely!”
Clarinetist Sidney Bechet called his marvelous memoir “Treat It Gentle.” The “it” wasn’t his instrument, or his or another person’s heart (oh, he was rough with those!); it was his muse, the mysterious source of his musical invention. That book scared the shit out of me. I know exactly what Cave means, above.
“Failure to provide the necessities of life”
The confounding death of Shannon Raymond and the charges against Victoria Turley, in whose house Shannon Raymond died: This trial has been heart-rending and, in places, literally unbelievable.
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Student authors
My Advanced Professional Communications class at Kwantlen has gotten going on its class blog.
