Let's talk blues and drugs

[Angeline]

Damn you are an assertive bitch, Ang. I'd be assertive in a much different way that no one would enjoy. Nonetheless, where is the creative located? In drugs? In self? In strong emotion? In soul?

Well poetry is both art and craft, in my opinion, so a (possibly brilliant) idea that is born under not optimum for writing conditions may never come to fruition or may be crafted--in a focused, sober state--into a decent piece of writing, no?

When I was young and foolish I thought I had to be in some sort of trancey uber-artiste state to write poetry. I don't believe that anymore. It's true that I do some of my best writing in "the zone" when I feel like the words are flowing effortlessly, but that is never an artifically altered state for me. But everyone is different: I have a good friend who swears he writes his best poems when he has a bottle of absinthe at his elbow. Doesn't work that way for me.

And where is your lovely wife? What is her opinion on this? I'd be very interested in Ms. Hynde's take on this.

 

[Tzara]

. . .where is the creative located? In drugs? In self? In strong emotion? In soul?

In the left hemisphere (for poetry, in Broca's and Wernicke's areas), generating images that are then beaten into comprehensibility by the right hemisphere.

Maybe. My own idea, anyways.

I know that my being a bit loopy from (ahem) strong drink can help with the image stuff, but stuff that runs to sloppiness. For my style, I very much need my over-dominant right brain (or my logical self--that left and right brain stuff is now in question) to step in and start fitting the joints properly.

Is that being creative? I dunno. What I think, anyways.

 

[The_Fool]

Damn you are an assertive bitch, Ang. I'd be assertive in a much different way that no one would enjoy. Nonetheless, where is the creative located? In drugs? In self? In strong emotion? In soul?

Creative is located in that point where memory melds with imagination. Memory of sensation coupled with imagination to define it. It is the ability to recognize the unique as well as the ability to define the mundane in a unique way.

I guess I'd offer the idea that within this discussion, the 'creative' is among other things innovative, communicative of new ideas, and perhaps of a certain quality that goes beyond just breaking rules for the sake of breaking rules. That's rules of thought and perception as well as the conventions of a particular art form.

So where does that lie? Probably in a number of different places, but I wonder sometimes if true creativity does lie in some realm of "altered consciousness", even if we simply define that as the ability to think outside one's cultural box. Substance or no substance, there's a commonality of a unique approach to an idea, a word, an instrument, a set of colors, whatever.

just a thought.

I think that what most seek with "altered consciousness" is the ability to set the debilitating aspects of life aside and simply experience the rest.

Well poetry is both art and craft, in my opinion, so a (possibly brilliant) idea that is born under not optimum for writing conditions may never come to fruition or may be crafted--in a focused, sober state--into a decent piece of writing, no?

When I was young and foolish I thought I had to be in some sort of trancey uber-artiste state to write poetry. I don't believe that anymore. It's true that I do some of my best writing in "the zone" when I feel like the words are flowing effortlessly, but that is never an artifically altered state for me. But everyone is different: I have a good friend who swears he writes his best poems when he has a bottle of absinthe at his elbow. Doesn't work that way for me.

And where is your lovely wife? What is her opinion on this? I'd be very interested in Ms. Hynde's take on this.

Someone that is good at a task makes it look easy, someone that is great at a task makes it look effortless. But the part that most never understand that in order to realize five minutes of perfection takes years of penance.

I think in a way, the experienced artist learns what bells to ring and create a natural stimulus. Everyone wants it easy. It is easy. Doing it well is not.

 

[Anschul]

A brief personal experience. Way, waaaaayyyyyy back in the mid seventies, I had the [good?] or [mis?] -fortune to tour with a band that was very heavily into all sorts of mind altering substances, and what I remember of those days (foggy as they may be) is that Fool is exactly right about a couple of points. The "altered consciousness" did permit them to set aside the bad stuff, experience the good stuff, and focus on the music. Most of the players in this particular band (you've heard of them) believed that they couldn't make their music without the altered state. Still touring twenty years later, older and more or less in control of their habits, they discovered that they had to actually work at making the music good. Was it as good? I'm still not sure. I heard them play at several stops on their last tour, in 1995, and some of it was inspired and some of it was absolute shit. But if you asked them (and I did), they would tell you that it was much harder work.

The late Jerry Garcia told me this joke in 1974:
"What was the first thing the Deadhead said when he got out of rehab?"
"Hey, Man, this band sucks."
He had an opinion.
A

 

[Yoron]

Well CharleyH

How about in your mind?
You asked 'Nonetheless, where is the creative located? In drugs? In self? In strong emotion? In soul?'

definitely in your mind and your dreams.
But there are innocent creativity unsoiled by experience and there are creativity sprung from hard living.
They are not the same...

Also creativity with words which more often than not comes from lies, your own and others.
This world is built on it, and we all know it.

Kind of boring actually.
That we can't take reality as it is.

A Egothingie perhaps?