#Do I need to elaborate on anything? The relationship speed run thing. They technically jumped straight to engagement. No dating beforehand

[nillisaie]

I just realized that I finally have enough proper art to fill this out!

I unfortunately don't really listen to music so I just put Daisies for.. reasons

[whnvr]

Brain Drain

Ah yes, hello. It is once again time to drain these brains of mine. A couple of more thoughts on this ‘Morning Pages’ process. Firstly, I’ve decided to take the Artist’s Way wording to heart and think of this as a non-negotiable exercise and, at least for the time being, I am going to do the full 1500 words as a block before I move onto anything else in my day. I’m still going to take the approach of retroactively editing them before I sleep in order to be more formatted, but the main body of text will be done first as, based on yesterday, I think this will focus me far more than spreading the writing out. Secondly, the more I think about it the more experimental I realise this entire process is for me. It’s probably best thought of as a heavily modified and specified version of the ‘Artist’s Way’ approach, as one of the stipulations offered up by Julia Cameron is that these are to be for your eyes and your eyes alone - even then going so far as to suggest that these should be sealed away in an envelope so that even the practitioner does not read them. So in that sense I am both taking a more documentative, methodical approach to the process and I am altering the formula by hosting these in a public forum. I understand that privacy helps to remove any filtering one may do but I also believe that the potential for these to be read comes with its own benefits. To that end this feels like an experiment of being creatively candid in public which is simulatenously exciting and daunting given that it runs so counter to the common approach of creating behind closed doors. I’d love to explore these ideas further as this journal progresses and see how my relationship with creativity changes due to these factors. So, I guess I’ll start by taking the measure of my day, as I am very much enjoying the ‘touching base’ element of these Morning Pages. I definitely feel a lot more blocked than I did yesterday, and it seems as though there’s somewhat of a hump to get over when I do these within the first 500 words or so before I get into a state of flow with it - this was true of yesterday also. Maybe that is one of the possible benefits of this exercise, that 'ramping-up-to-flow’ stage is one I likely experience whenever I sit down to create and the Brain Drain may be a way of me overcoming that before I come to do any of the actual creative work of my day. It seems as though forcing myself to do all 1500 words yesterday put me into the same sort of flow-state I gain from working on a really successful piece of music, and then today I am once again reset back into that familiar place of being 'blocked’, which even now I am slowly working through and unpicking purely by writing these words. Looking back on previous creative work this would seem to make an awful lot of sense. How much more demotivating it is to have to wake up and untease the same blocked feeling each morning on projects that I care deeply about and am heavily invested in than it is to instead get that part of the process out of the way on an off the cuff exercise like Brain Drain each morning. Maybe attempting to ease such a block through the work we care about is where all feelings of 'I’ve lost it’ and 'this project is hard now. Therefore how much better it must be to work through those blocks in a format that we’re not quite so invested in. Even right now there is a part of me that is very much resisting this process. It is an anxiety that masks itself as restlessness and tells me to 'go and watch a film, Aaron. Why put yourself through something so hard?’. As it is the creative enemy I have decided to call this my personal Antagonizer. Other thoughts of the Antagonizer, or the 'me’ that feels uncomfortable and uncreative: - 'Go and make a milkshake Aaron. Don’t do this. It’s 30 degrees outside today. You really need to just cool down.’ - 'Get up and walk around. You really need to release some of this tension that you’re feeling.’ - 'Go and talk to a family member. Telling them about what you want to write would be much easier than simply writing it’. That’s right Antagonizer, I WILL use your criticism in order to help me hit this wordcount. Checkmate. Yesterday has taught me that past this feeling is where enjoyment and flow lie if I can only push through it. I imagine some days will be significantly harder than others, and I imagine that I will even have days where 1500 words won’t begin to scratch the surface of this block, but I would so much rather try to push through this block writing whatever comes to mind over-and-above pushing through this block attempting to create whatever passes for a masterpiece in my world. On to next steps then. I would like to select a new artist to listen to today as I get on with other work. This would also be a good opportunity to show off a little of how I organise my inspiration, despite how embarrassingly over-elaborate it is.

On Spotify I keep a folder of artists who I’m either interest in, inspired by, are important pieces of musical history, examples of current artists who are doing what they do incredibly successfully, or artists that I feel would be generally useful to experience. For each artist, I will create a playlist, and in each playlist, I will save that artist’s entire discography chronologically. I will then slowly work my way through each of the artist’s discographies, deleting what I’ve listened to and categorising songs that jump out to me either in terms of whether I love, like, or dislike them, the emotional qualities that I want to emulate in my own music, or the technical qualities that stand out as exemplary within each song. This allows me to simultaneously build a picture of what my musical tastes are, keep an accurate record of my listening history, and create song palettes for different emotional qualities that I wish to put into my own work.

(Above: the technical qualities of music that I have categorised. This forms up a reference library that I can use to further refine these qualities when I’m working on my own music)Here are the criteria I use to define each of these categories. Idea: the concept behind a piece. Narrative: the story told. Lyrics: how ideas are expressed through words. Mood: the emotionality of a piece. Expression: how ideas are framed and delivered through the articulation of the music. Musicality: the use of harmony, rhythm, and theory to communicate those ideas. Rhythm: the measure, speed, flow, and cadence of a piece. Timbre: the overall texture, tone, and sonic palette of a piece. Structure: the flow of a piece over time. Mix: how the timbre has been arranged as an ensemble. Master: how the piece has been polished. Delivery: the title, artwork, context, presentation, and moving image that contain the piece.

(Above: the emotional qualities of music that I have categorised as a reference library for how artists that I look up to achieve specific emotional qualities in their work). These are decidedly more abstract and are generally more subject to the songs themselves that are being added. For reference, here’s the current list of artists who’s work I want to study, all at various stages of listened to, completed, or not listened to at all: - Labelle - Car Seat Headrest - Snail Mail - Japanese Breakfast - Let’s Eat Grandma - Soccer Mommy - LCD Soundsystem - Big Thief - Have a Nice Life - Beebadoobee - Animanaguchi - 100gecs - Courtney Barnett - Chromonicci - Owsey - Dark Cat - Valentine - SOPHIE - Kamasi Washington - Prince - Aurora - Massive Attack - Haywyre - Maths Time Joy - Counting Crows - Jack Strauber - Blossom Calderone - Goldfrapp - Janelle Monae - Meteorologist - Easyfun - Saint Lewis - Julian Gray - Jade Cicada - Blake Skowron - 92Elm - Maxime - Stereo Cube - Chuck Sutton - Gemi - Queen - Laxcity - Duumu - Oh Wonder - Galamatias - Umru - Underscores - Brockhampton - Fleece - i Monster - Deaton Chris Anthony - Amy Winehouse - The Beatles - Sumthin Sumthin - Radiohead - Flume - Knapsack - Dodie Here are the artists who’s discographies I have completed via this approach: - Sidney Gish - M.I.A - In Love With a Ghost - Bowie - Pink Floyd - Baird - Rudimental - Iglooghost - Madeon - Porter Robinson - 100gecs I use a similar system alongside this over on Pinterest for visual work in order to better inform my visual style and aesthetic sensibilities. Here is how I define my visual observation: Interior & Exterior, the space of dwelling.

Colour, of which idiosyncrasy and primary colours are a main focus.

Tone, subtler than colour. An intangible quality communicated by shifting hues and gradiated layers.

Mood, the way an image feels.

Looks, clothes, & apparel: personal artistic image and identity.

Desolation, a quality not currently present in my own work, but one that I often observe and love within other work, as well as in storytelling and other environments.

Layout, the way things are arranged in relation to one another within a space.

Idea, the concept behind a thing.

Texture, the tactile quality of visual elements.

Form, the shape and bounds of a thing.

Presentation, the context a thing is placed within.

Render, the quality imparted by computer generated imagery.

Type, how words are displayed.

Pattern, the use of repetition.

As you can see, how I define sound and visual art share a fairly common language between them. Anyway, I divert. I’m going to select SOPHIE as the next discography to tear through and I am also going to continue working through the UE4 Beginner learning path, though before either of these I have some university paperwork/admin stuff to finish so I’d best crack on with that. Toodles!

[the-kings-tail-fin]

Was there ever a racer who made it to the Piston Cup and ended up with a team that worked after hours and overtime to make their team the best it could be, only for that racer to like. Show no initiative, not try at all, and make altogether utterly subpar laps around the track come race day? How did that go down? And given how completely opposite that behavior is to what being in the Piston Cup means, who was the most let down? His team owner? CC? Pit crew? Competitors? The analysts? The fans?

Pretty sure I recognize the parallel that prompted this ask XD 

Allow me to analyze this much deeper than anyone should…

The Piston Cup is such a prestigious level of circuit racing that it’s nearly impossible to reach without giving up everything to focus on your racing passion. Even then, sometimes it’s not enough. How could someone just hitchhike their way into the big leagues? It seems impossible.

But that’s not to say that it hasn’t happened. Historically there have been three periods in Piston Cup racing history where the racer turnover was at an all time high - the mid-fifties when the manufacturers started focusing more on speed than simple luxuries, the late sixties and early seventies when they engaged in the horsepower war, and what we see in Cars 3 with the next gens using technology to their advantage. Wiping most of the field clean and bringing in new talent is a messy sort of business. 

No team wants to be left out of the game because they refuse to embrace the future. If they don’t hop on the bandwagon as it passes, they’re going to get left in the dust, and what happens when you don’t do well? You lose sponsorship, you make less money, your employees and your team are less happy, and therefore don’t work to their full potential. Why should they when they know they’re not gonna do any better than P30 at any given race? They start to question why they’re even there. It’s a slippery slope leading to the death of a racing team.

When changes happen, they happen rapidly. Let’s take what we see in Cars 3 as an example to further elaborate. In less than a handful of races, half the field has cycled to employing next generation racers. In only a few races, the seasoned veterans we all love are no longer the best of the best, but instead a bunch of rookies that have barely been around long enough to know what pavement actually feels like under their tires. By the end of the season? There’s maybe three cars that aren’t next gens. 

Fearing death itself, all these race teams that made the sudden switch to a new racer didn’t really have time to sit back and get to know the racer super deeply beforehand. Are they fast? Check. Are they rockstars on the simulator? Absolutely. Have they gone to some remotely ‘prestigious’ training center? Uhhhh, sure. Do they want to race? Well, they’re racecars, aren’t they?

The lack of relationship between team and racer can’t be solidified under the stresses of mid-season racing. The crew and the racer just don’t know each other well enough to read between the lines while communicating. Making a crucial decision in the last stage of a race based on which octave the racer is giving feedback in can be problematic for a racer that sounds akin to a dial up tone. Some racers don’t appreciate joking during a race while others can’t seem to take basic constructive criticism. Some teams just become complete basketfires, making mistake after mistake because they just don’t know each other. 

But it’s not all bad. Aside from Jackson outperforming everyone, there are a few other racing teams consistently performing at the front of the pack. We see Chase and Danny a lot. They were some of the first next gens to be brought onto the track before the entire sport jumped on board. It seemed like a few teams were prepared for the switch - and those were the ones that spent time investigating the newest generation of up and coming racers. The relationship, or lacking that, a general sense of a racer’s enthusiasm, was already noted and confirmed.

But back on track. The teams that weren’t prepared to make the switch to a new racer - they made their decision in a hurry. You know how sometimes someone can look really good on paper, and even make themselves sound good, but when it comes down to it, they’re a worthless employee? I would almost guarantee that at least one of the next gens fits this bill. 

It was probably some mid-range team looking for change and embracing the first thing that came along. The racer they ended up with is a lot like that kid whose parents forced him to go to college and get a degree and then paid for all of it for him. He’s not motivated. He’s not had to try and push himself to achieve anything spectacular his whole life. He doesn’t know what it means to truly love and be passionate about anything. He’s fast, yes. He has technical knowledge about how to race. He even knows how to apply it. But does he want to? There’s no conviction there. Speed is a fleeting metric. What’s fast one day will be slow the next. If a racer has no other redeeming qualities about him, there’s no point in keeping him. It’s time to move on.

In the wake of the next gens overthrowing the Piston Cup as we knew it, he’s just another name no one knows. In a field of forty very fast cars, someone’s gotta bring up the rear. Might as well be him. He’s still getting paid handsomely, why should he try any harder? 

The fans don’t really know him. There’s a few that like him just for his paint scheme and apparent laid-back personality, but that’s it. The racers ignore him and push past him. The commentators brush over mentioning him unless he’s caught in a wreck. The analysts never consider him in their coverage - not even as a garage pick. He’s as far removed from the spotlight as he can get. And he’s fine with that.

But his team is most certainly not. They’re paying him a decent fortune to go out there and win races, and he’s never come close. They’re P20 on a fantastic day. The crew chief and pit crew are the most annoyed. They’re the ones that have to work with him on a regular basis. They’re the ones that suffer when he decides that running real laps a full second slower than his average time on the simulated track is fine. They can work their absolute hardest and not fix the problems that he’s bringing to the table. So why should they even try? They’ve worked their tails off and got no reward. They can only do this for so long.

The team owner takes responsibility, because it was his decision to begin with to bring this racer into the organization that no one knew. He feels guilty. His team shouldn’t have to suffer like this in order to pull off a mediocre day at best. The ripple effect of the racer’s attitude and lack of conviction starts to wash through the organization as a whole and it hasn’t gone unnoticed. This team compared to the team is was a year ago is an entirely different animal, and that needs to change before it’s too late.

They tough out the rest of the season with their halfhearted racer and spend some time genuinely looking at the other racers waiting in line. They get to know a few of them and get a feel for how they’ll perform. They’ll make an educated decision this time, one that won’t devalue their work. They’ll give a young racer a chance to race at the Piston Cup level -  someone who deserves it.