Blogging Creatively

At the moment, I'm blogging from my phone, killing time before dinner and a show with a friend. Ah, technology...

I attended a panel discussion last night on "Working Creatively," which was originally billed as a session on how to bring creativity into jobs (like mine) which are not generally seen as "artistic." It ended up as a rather impassioned discussion on how to keep and advance the efforts of creative people in cities (like Memphis) which are not generally seen as supportive of such efforts. So I didn't come away with any new perspectives on how to make my work more fresh and exciting, but I did get a lot to think about on how to make the city more fresh and exciting. And some great insights on why people here think it already is.

It always inspires me to be around people who love Memphis for what it is and have great hopes for what it can be. Especially people who are willing to step up, in ways big and small, and do their part to achieve those hopes. I'm hoping that all the excitement that was generated last night can be channeled into something bigger.

For my small part, I am off to support local theater at The Glass Menagerie. The last time I saw a production of it was in college, on the tail end of the meltdown I alluded to several posts earlier. I am sure this one will probably resonate for me in different ways.

Last weekend, I saw 1776 for the first time since I worked on a production 10 years ago. I was struck by the references to tyranny and terror and the tradeoff between liberty and comfortable safety. It sounded so much like a commentary on wiretapping and waterboarding. But, of course, neither of those things existed in 1776.