Kablammo!

Creativity.

It’s a word that gets bandied about a lot. «Creative» gets a lot of play as well. Both words usually come up in the context of someone who creates, sure, but someone who creates something like a play or a novel or a painting or something. Scientists and engineers, on the other hand, are often dismissed as uncreative. Why is that?

Dictionary.com defines ‘creative’ as:

1. Having the ability or power to create: Human beings are creative animals.
2. Productive; creating.
3. Characterized by originality and expressiveness; imaginative: creative writing

Perhaps it’s missing the point to examine a word’s definition to try to get a grip on perception and use of the word, but I’m going to do it anyway. To pick a contrived, nonrandom example, I’m going to compare hypothetical persons A and B, where person A is the author of several Harlequin romance novels and person B is a research physicist with many publications and a Ph.D. to his name.

Persons A and B are both published authors, so they clearly both fit definition 1 of ‘creative’.

Assuming persons A and B both continue to work in their respective fields, they’ll both continue to do what they did to meet definition 1’s criterion, and in doing so they’ll meet definition 2.

Definition 3, however, is the sticky wicket; definition 3 is where the simultaneous requirements of originality and expressiveness come in. Person A’s ‘creative’ output expresses just how hunky Fabio looks, and person B’s ‘creative’ output expresses the theoretical basis for his research, his experimental procedures, and what conclusions if any he draws from them; we’ll call both people ‘expressive’. Originality, however, is a different matter entirely. Person A and the rest of the Harlequin romance authors (and TV producers, and movie scriptwriters, and recording artists, and other such ‘creative types’) have no imperative for originality; banal, uninspired, derivative works seem to be produced all the time. Person B, on the other hand, is required to be original. In fact, every person with a doctorate is required to have been original. It’s possible to have a career as an author without a single original expression, but it’s not possible to have a career as a scientist without a single original contribution.

Song of the Moment: «Melatonin» — Radiohead

Well, on Friday, the Eesti Maja, in between feeding me 6 or 7 pints of Saku, regaled me with the quite enjoyable live music of Blind. Then, in the morning, I had a Blind CD on my desk, and an email in my inbox from Amazon. This email alleged that I was shortly to be the proud owner of a copy of Blind’s best-of CD. How I loathe one-click ordering… Thank god Amazon ‘Marketplace’ had a guy selling the CD for $2.49 + shipping.

And then the Red Sox won. Go Sox! What a hilarious game. I love seeing a guy get tagged out at home well after he forgot to step on the bag! Bowling over the catcher is all well and good, but it’s only half the job.

And then I went on an optional Sound & Space class field trip to the Staten Island Ferry. Don’t ask. Anyway, it was still a nice breather and a nice day to be out.

And then the Red Sox won again. Go Sox!

I want a telephone spider, like Dr. Weird had on ATHF tonight.

Songs of the Moment:

• «Old Bloody Orange» — Hawksley Workman
• «Playing in a Rock’N’Roll Band» — Blind
• «Schreit den Namen meiner Mutter» — Tomte

From the making-nerds-look-extra-creepy department: Next time you make fun of Aaliyah and her starring role in Queen of the Damned, please don’t mock her in front of the kind of idiot who will kill you for insulting Akasha. The kind of idiot I’m referring to is also the kind of idiot who will vow to kill again and sign his name in blood on letters to himself. By the way, after this idiot kills you for making fun of a fictional character portrayed by a dead actress, he’ll drink your blood and hide your corpse.

The smacktard who does all this will laugh at the 25-year prison sentence he has to look forward to, claiming that he’s immortal and vampiric and crap, from having drunk your blood. However, seeing as daylight appears to have had no deleterious effects on him, it’s you who will have the last laugh. Assuming you’re capable of laughing while in a pine box in the ground, that is. Also, assuming that you find your killer’s death amusing for some reason.

From the in-other-news department, those of you who want to see some pictures from this year’s Scanfest can just mosey over to pildid.net’s coverage.

Song of the Moment: «Lost On Yer Merry Way» — Grandaddy

So there I was, having just finished reading Bertrand Russell‘s «Why I Am Not A Christian» when, as was my wont, I decided to read this week’s issue of The Onion. (If you’re looking for some kind of logical progression there, don’t bother.)

Anyway, after reading the «In the News», «STATshot», «News In Brief», and «What Do You Think?» sections (and the horoscopes), I clicked my way over to the «Infographic». What greeted me there was, as promised, an infographic about the NYSE, but there was also the more sinister presence of this picture, in a box conveniently labeled ‘advertisement’. Go on, look at it the picture. I mean it, I’m not going to continue until you do look at it.

Well, now that you’ve looked at this picture, perhaps you can justify its existence. If so, please enlighten me.

Why in the name of all that is holy is the History Channel airing a show called “Extreme History“… starring Roger freaking Daltrey. What committee came up with the idea to take the story of Lewis & Clark, call it ‘extreme’, and sign on a former lead singer as the host? What demographic are they trying to appeal to? Baby boomers are the ones who give a rat’s ass about band members of The Who, but they’re not the type of person to go apeshit in their enthusiasm for the word ‘extreme‘, and I doubt anybody really cares about Lewis & Clark (which is a real tragedy).

I have nothing against Roger Daltrey, or the History Channel for that matter, but this show just seems remarkably ill-planned. I think the History Channel has entirely given up on attracting female viewership, as most of their shows are about the history of stabbings or prostitution or jet fighters or something, and this new show just looks like another half-hearted attempt at getting more guys to watch the channel. Calling it ‘extreme’ just makes it seem like they’re trying to stay ‘hip’ and ‘with it’ and ‘relevant’ and ‘poppin’ fresh’, which, when combined with a rock star from the 1960’s seems almost comically mismatched. Daltrey looks so miserable in that picture, dressed up like Crocodile Dundee, that I really feel sorry for the guy. Lo, how the mighty have fallen.

Song of the Moment: «Behind Blue Eyes» — The Who

Here’s a deluge of crap from me to you, to show how much I truly care.

From our dear friends at the New York Times:

Many Hollywood executives say there is still time before free Internet movie swapping takes hold. Internet movie files are still large and unwieldy, taking as much as two hours to download.

I’d like to find whatever filesharing utility they’ve got that can promise delivery of any movie in less than two hours! Anyway, it seems that the MPAA is engaging in more acts of hilarity, as they’re apparently planning on instituting a vaguely DARE-like program for middle-school students — a program designed to instruct children about the perils of filesharing through crossword puzzles and role-playing. I can only assume that this initiative will be a perfectly wonderful success, and the MPAA’s piracy-related concerns will immediately disappear the instant that 14-year-olds stop trying to download «Shrek».

Wait, what’s that I hear? Could it possibly be the sound of the MPAA calling itself the biggest contributor to piracy? The piracy that’s actually capable of causing any kind of harm to the MPAA is the kind of piracy that involves people illegally mass-producing, and then proceeding to sell, movies. This kind of piracy is what results in pristine DVD-quality copies of, say, LOTR:TTT being available from your local store street vendor and/or Chinese smuggling ring within a week of the film’s theatrical release. This is also the kind of piracy that results in entire countries where nobody owns a legitimate copy of a given movie. This kind of piracy, not some nerd using his university’s T1 connection to download a DivX copy of «The Story of Ricky» or «The Highlander», is worth complaining about and fighting. Note, however, that for the most-pirated movies out there (like LOTR:TTT, Spider-man, and others), the early availability of pirate copies didn’t mean the movies wouldn’t make hundreds of cubic shitloads of dollars of profit. Perhaps there’s a lesson there…

In other news, specifically other news not involving me griping about the MPAA, I will now gripe about the RIAA. Just kidding! What a suprise, the RIAA hasn’t done anything in the past two hours that I feel like complaining about — nothing that I’m aware of, in any case. What I will mention, however, is that there was allegedly some huge blackout covering all of Italy tonight. By the time anybody in Italy reads this entry, the problem will have been taken care of, of course, but news may as well be news.

Song of the Moment: “Fight Test” — The Flaming Lips

So there I was, walking along the streets of Manhattan, minding my own business, when my progress was temporarily halted by a «don’t walk» indicator and the accompanying cross traffic. As was my wont, I went a few steps into the street, stepping past a bum who also happened to be waiting for the light to change. No sooner was I past him than I felt the bum shoving past me, trying to shoulder me out of his way. I didn’t feel like starting shit with the guy, so I just let him past me. “Maybe he’d just begun to move when I stepped past him,” I thought, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

As it turned out, the bum evidently had some kind of neurosis that prevented him from letting people walk past him. Once the traffic signal’s ominous ochre hand gave way to the stoic striding white man, I again tried to outflank the bum, only to have him quickly dart in my way so I couldn’t get past. Then some other guy tried to pass the bum on the other side, and was summarily faced with an impenetrable wall of bum. I managed to get past him a few times by getting him caught on phone booths or on pedestrians walking the other way, but he’d just do his best to stumble around whatever obstacles there were and dash in front of me again. I guess he just doesn’t like people walking in front of him.

I ended up crossing over to the other side of the street, passing him there, then crossing back a few blocks later. I expected the poor guy to come sprinting up the street in an attempt to stay in front of me, but I guess I was outside of his perceived threat radius or whatever. So be it.

Song of the Moment: «Four to the Floor» — Starsailor

So there I was, listening to versions of “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and Rufus Wainwright, when I realised that my favourite version to date was performed by Matt Pillion. Funny how the world works sometimes, ain’t it?

Also, let’s hope the film I saw today, Afghan Massacre, was a steaming pile of malarkey, and that no US troops are, were, in fact, complicit in the killings of a good 4000 Afghani prisoners-of-war.

Song of the Moment: Piano Sonata ^#15, 2^nd movement ‘Andante’ — Beethoven

I’ve really got to stop visiting Brooklyn. Nothing even remotely worth the trip ever happens there, but now at least I have photographic evidence of the door. That picture was obtained at unimaginable cost; both the human and the psychological toll are completely unfathomable. I’m sure that, now that I’ve exposed its secrets, the door will do its utmost to extract some sort of vengeance. Expect to see my bloody corpse in the East River, rendered nearly unrecognizable by the relentless poundings of an incensed doorknob.

Song of the Moment: “Beat City” — The Raveonettes

I really have to hand it to the people at BitTorrent. Not only have they created a robust, reliable distributed filesharing system, but they evidently work as a news service as well. Yes, a news service!

You look incredulous, so let me explain. BitTorrent, or, more specifically, a .torrent tracking site, is where I found out that Muse had a new album coming out. Hell, I even found out what it sounded like. Then today BitTorrent, or, more specifically, that same .torrent tracking site, told me all about Starsailor‘s new album.

Song of the Moment: “She Moves She” — Four Tet

Hm, tonight’s the first night in almost two weeks that I haven’t had at least a beer or two. Ah well, such is life.

Thoughts on Muse’s Absolution follow.
NOTE — This is a work in progress, and I’ll keep reediting this entry until I’ve finished it.
NOTE — As of over a month after the original post date, I’ve finally gone back and finished this thing. Heh. ^_^;;

• Intro: Mmm, footsteps. Segues well enough into the next track, I guess, but seems kind of pointless nonetheless.
• Apocalypse Please: Musically, this song reminds me of the whole first half of Origin of Symmetry — it’s got shades of everything there besides that wonderful distortion in «New Born». It’s nice to hear them hammering the living hell out of a piano for once, instead of the usual obligatory guitar, bass and drums. They’ve used pianos before, but not like this. Also, the vocal harmonies, simple as they are, are much appreciated and give the song a vibe that works well.
• Time is Running Out: This song bears a striking resemblance to «Muscle Museum», being similarly bass-driven and cleaving just as strongly to Muse’s quiet-loud-quiet-loud trademark. It’s also as catchy as «Muscle Museum», and makes an obvious choice for a single.
• Sing for Absolution: Inoffensive.
• Stockholm Syndrome: ::sigh:: If Muse showed development as artists on the rest of this album, which they certainly did for the most part, they certainly didn’t with this track. Every aspect of it, from the melody, riffs, and instrumentation to the lyrics, effects, and pacing could just as easily have been present on Showbiz or Origin… and it still had a chance of sounding fresh back then. Nothing wrong with sticking to what worked in the past, I suppose, but I just wish it didn’t sound so godawfully uninspired.
  If I had to pick a song from this album that I guessed would be featured in a terrible action movie, it would definitely be «Stockholm Syndrome».

• Falling Away With You: It’s a real shame that the lead guitar and the vocal part have the exact same melody for the majority of the song, because it does nothing but detract from both. What remains is fairly bland.
• Interlude: Perhaps it was just a riff that Muse didn’t feel like turning into a full song, but at least there’s something to it, and it leads very nicely into…
• Hysteria: Energetic and pretty fun, this is standard Muse fare. Best part: the happy little instrumental bit that is the bridge.
• Blackout: Placed as it is between two high-intensity rockers, this song is in the perfect place for getting its ass skipped for being so downtempo, which is a real shame since it’s such a nice and depressing song. As much as I want to like this song, though, I really can’t bring myself to listen to it all that much, since I feel like yelling at Muse to get on with it and get to the part of the song that isn’t boring. Props for trying something different, though.
• Butterflies and Hurricanes: This is an awesome song, but it could have been even better. I don’t mind a song that slowly builds until it’s really loud, then drops away to nothing and builds up quickly to a final crescendo, except when the «drops away to nothing» part of that plan leaves you dropped to nothing for too long and gets you mired down in an annoying piano bridge. Other than that, I approve.
• TSP: The verse part’s swell, but the intro and chorus are swill.
• Endlessly: As with their other albums, Muse’s most interesting work on this one comes in the form of an atypically light song. In this case, «Endlessly» has a fresh new sound, at least insofar as Muse are concerned, a sound much more electronic than usual. Also, it’s a damn catchy song, and quite possibly the best on the album. In any case, it’s my favourite du jour and I’m going to stop writing about it because the noise of my keyboard is distracting me from its beautiful tones and sentiments. Listen to this song. And then listen to it some more.
  Seriously, I could listen to this song endlessly.

• Thoughts of a Dying Atheist: A slightly pompous name, perhaps, but the lyrics serve it well, and it’s a good song. Especially the «yeah yeah yeah» part at the end of the chorus.
• Ruled By Secrecy: Gentle and sweet, as well as horrifically depressing. Excellent. It’s great to see a band respond to success by putting such depressing lyrics and nice piano riffs in their songs.

That’s all, folks!