Asking the Question and Chasing the Game: The Story of a Comeback

By Josh Corman

The question-askingest SoB I know.

Asking the Question

Up until a few years ago, I thought that I had heard every sports-related cliché and metaphor in existence. Then I started watching soccer. It didn’t take me long to realize that soccer commentators – my favorite is the darkly humorous yet empathetic Ian Darke – possess a diverse, insightful vocabulary all their own, perfectly suited to mirror the nuance of The Beautiful Game and - if I can be grandiose for a moment - life.

I’ll share two expressions which I had never heard before I started supporting Liverpool Football Club of the English Premier League (imagine you were the parent of a bright child whose behavior and performance in school fluctuated so violently that you alternately believed he should apply to Harvard or be given up for adoption – that’s what supporting Liverpool is like, in case you need a frame of reference). The first is “asking the question,” and the second is “chasing the game.” I want to examine both of these expressions for their significance on and off the pitch.

“Asking the question” can be loosely defined as “prodding your opponent in a variety of ways, hoping to discover a weak link in their defenses.” Obviously, the concept itself isn’t unique to soccer. A quarterback hurling a deep ball early in the first half to gauge how well a cornerback is covering a star receiver is “asking the question.” Watch any basketball team try to penetrate a zone defense and you’ll see what appears to be a series of non-committal and innocuous passes, but what you’re really observing is a series of increasingly pressing questions. The offense just needs one to go unanswered, and they’ll strike.

In soccer, the potential payoff for “asking the question” is more immense than in any other sport I can think of. A goal is approximately equivalent to two touchdowns in American football, a twenty to nothing run in basketball, or a Grand Slam in baseball – it doesn’t represent an unconquerable deficit, but it makes the going very tough for the opposition. And so teams whip crosses into the penalty area, push their right and left backs up the field to increase pressure on the defense, attempt intricate pass combinations designed to catch a defender wrong-footed, and rip twenty-five yard rifle-shots just to make sure the keeper is on his toes, all in the interest of procuring that most critical accomplishment in the entire sport: the break-through goal.

If you watch soccer, you might be nodding along at this point. If not, you’re likely thinking, ‘Well, obviously. Why the hell doesn’t everybody just “ask the question” until they get a goal or three?’ The answer is simple. “Asking the question” is a risk every time, and mitigating risk is a huge part of what most soccer teams do during their ninety minutes on the pitch. Often, mid-level clubs achieve success by toothlessly passing back to their own keeper and pushing forward only slightly, rarely daring to “ask the question” in any serious capacity. By playing it safe, they hope to keep the game close against more dynamic clubs and, at worst, eke out a draw. “Asking the question” is too dangerous for them to attempt with any real flair or consistency, because more capable sides will often have a ready answer. They’ll clear a probing cross to safety and surge forward in a fluid counter-attack, visibly, tangibly shifting momentum and catching their meeker, milder counterparts with their pants down.

Yes, “asking the question” is always a risk, but the dominant clubs, ones to whom adjectives like “inspired,” “powerful,” “invigorated,” and “masterful” can be routinely applied, “ask the question” constantly. They don’t delude themselves into believing that mere possession equals dominance. Possession is an illusion of a statistic. Soccer isn’t about safely cradling the ball between the midfield and center backs. Possession is only as valuable as what you do with it, and “asking the question” is the best way to make possession count.

Chasing the Game

Goalless draws are admittedly abhorrent. In fact, I’d bet that the primary reason that soccer isn’t more popular in America has less to do with its ill-grasped nuance or the lack of an elite domestic league. Rather, I think that the concept of draws - altogether repugnant to the American sports audience as a collective, goalless draws doubly so - kills the idea of soccer before it's given an honest chance. We just don’t like the idea of subjecting ourselves to ninety-plus minutes of a contest in which neither side achieves their objective. We love meritocracies and hierarchies, and feel like sports should reflect this love.

I’ve seen the dull side of the game and mostly come to terms with it. Of course it’s still maddening to watch a team deliberately hold out for a draw instead of “asking the question” of the opposition even once during a lifeless back-pass-fest, but those games are actually rarer than the average soccer-hater would have you believe.

What happens more often is that the teams feel each other out - “asking the question” a few times and applying all that open reconnaissance to a developing strategy - until one of them gets a goal. Then, something changes. Faced with a one goal deficit, the team on the short side of the scoreboard has a critical strategic (and moral, really) decision to make. They can keep doing what got them a goal down, or they can “chase the game.”

A team that “chases the game” is a little desperate, they feel cornered, and, backs to the wall, they’ve realized that their last best shot is to come out swinging. It might start with a more aggressive formation or more persistent attempts to pass the ball into attacking position, but no matter the strategy, a team “chasing the game” is a team qualitatively different from that more reserved version of itself. The change in perspective ignites something in a team that’s a goal down. They often spark to life as though a switch has been flipped and their confidence builds, they push up the field and take chances, firing balls into empty spaces filled almost magically by their sprinting teammates, they pass and cut and put the other team on their heels. And then, they score.

Watching the deciding moments of a soccer match level at a goal apiece is almost like watching a different sport. With little time left and a lot to be gained by clear victory, both sides are “chasing the game,” and the pitch suddenly seems wide open. The mad scramble for the winning goal results in fluid, dynamic soccer that represents the way the game was meant to be played, the best it has to offer. And when you see this, the same thought will likely occur to you that occurs to me every time I watch it unfold: ‘Why don’t they play like this for the whole ninety minutes?’

But the answer is the same as the answer to the earlier question: fear. Worry. Risk-mitigation. There is something inside players and managers, especially those who play for a side that doesn’t have the financial or geographical advantages of a Manchester City or Barcelona, that compels them to play things close to the vest, maybe send the occasional long ball in to a striker, and hope for an early break-through. I’ve seen it time and time again. That first goal, the one that shoots more conservative game plans all to hell and forces the losing team to “chase the game,” is sometimes the very thing that actually wins the game for the team that gave it up, because suddenly just holding the ball and waiting for something lucky to happen doesn’t make sense any more.

The Beautiful Game

I’ve been teaching high school English for four years now. I have a pretty cushy gig by high school English teacher standards, actually. Four sections of AP English Language and Composition with a roster of kids who are almost all decent and courteous and intelligent and serious about their school work. I like the people in my department and get along well with the administration, plus I’m pretty good at the job itself.

None of these things is all that important, however, because I can count on one hand the number of days in four years that I’ve come home from work and felt fulfilled or content. My job does nothing for my spirit. It doesn’t speak to my purpose, or offer me a chance to express my talent and intelligence in their highest forms. This is just a fancy way of saying that I don’t much like what I do.

I never wanted to be an English teacher, I just thought I did. I thought this because I assumed that there exists a relationship between loving to read and write and teaching English. This may surprise you, but the two have almost nothing to do with one another. It didn’t take me long to realize this, and for four years, I’ve been holding the ball in the midfield, booting it left to right, dropping it to the center back, then to the goalie, half-heartedly “asking the (occasional) question,” waiting for something lucky to happen. I’m sure you can imagine how much fun this would be to live through. Just like watching a goalless draw. I haven’t been losing, really, because I’ve done some writing, and I have a job that’s at least tangentially connected to my interests, but I’ve not been winning either.

These thoughts and dozens of others like them have been weighing on me for a while now, and at some point during the last couple of weeks, those forces in my life which are opposed to my joy and satisfaction scored a break-through. I was suddenly down a goal, shocked at how quickly it had all happened, seriously wondering about my capability to recover. The choice resulting from this blow was simple, though not easy. I could choose to stay the course, knocking the ball around and hoping for a break that wasn’t likely to ever come.

Or, I could “chase the game.”

I started pushing back against those oppositional forces. I started “asking the question” again and again. What do I want to do? And what has to change for that to happen? At first, the opposition repelled my advances. Fears over finances and security and failure countered my attacks ferociously. But I kept pushing, and finally, the opposing defenses broke down.

It started, of all things, with an argument my wife and I had. Like a lot of arguments, this one started over nothing particularly important, but led to a revelation: It’s awful doing a job that feels in no way like what you’ve been built to do. I said this to my wife, and her only response was, “Then do it. We’ll make it work.”

I’ve never stood on the pitch at Anfield, Liverpool’s home stadium, sweating, exhausted, staring a deficit in the eye, only to have 50,000 flag-waving supporters rise to their feet and belt out Liverpool’s club anthem, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” but I think it would feel something like hearing those seven words from my wife: Then do it. We’ll make it work. It’s risky, I know. But the choice to chase my passion is my equalizer.

The game is level at a goal apiece, and I’ve got the opposition on its heels.

By Josh Corman

Follow me on Twitter @JoshACorman

A Russian Pill for the Postmodern Blues

By Emily Walls

My generation is obsessed with irony. In Internet comments, Tweets, TV shows, and face-to-face conversation, we seem incapable of authenticity. April Ludgate of Parks and Rec is our poster child, but of course the poster is hung only in tongue-in-cheek self-reference. The writers of The Simpsons summed it up more than a decade ago in this gag from "Homerpalooza."

Irony and its cousin, metaphor, can be powerful, but I think when we use them exclusively, we dilute their virtue. In literature and art, our authors and filmmakers most often use metaphor to expose truth, and they are effective. American Beauty, Pan's Labyrinth and Toy Story 3 deftly expose deep longing within us, but they do it parabolically. In our art, subtlety is king, and irony is second in command. We are, in fact, so steeped in irony, much like the Simpsons characters, that straightforward declaration is uncouth, even vulgar. It's all right, we suppose, in the proper media, like Opinion sections and documentaries, but it is repugnant and amateur in fiction. We've seen it done poorly too many times to give it credence. Saved, Robinson Crusoe, Remember the Titans, even parts of my favorite book of all time, Jane Eyre, stumble into didacticism. In response, we stick with ever-faithful metaphor. Because we have only learned to draw stick figures, we eschew portraits altogether, but I believe that the realism of a Rembrandt can be just as stirring, sometimes more so, than the abstractions of a Picasso. Or in unambiguous terms, metaphor is useful but not all-encompassing, so when we reject explicit storytelling—both in plot and dialogue—we needlessly limit our expression.

This Picasso (1937) is good.

This Picasso (1895) is also good.

For proof, let's look to the master of straightforward dialogue, Fyodor Dostoevsky. His characters in The Brothers Karamazov are as ideologically diverse as they are fascinating. When I read the story last summer, I was two hundred pages in before I realized the plot had barely moved. The characters were so engaging, their dialogue so provocative, I had not noticed the glacier-esque plot. What's more, their conversations were philosophically charged, so much so that if I were inclined, I could spend weeks dissecting and studying each exchange. I'm not exaggerating. I often found myself mentally developing curricula for imaginary book circles I led (with an iron fist and a garish hat).

In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky takes the best conversations you've had in the last decade, your wandering thoughts in the shower, your quiet reflections at night just before you fall asleep, and your meditations on sermons and speeches, divides them among a dozen characters, and gives them back to you in organized and clear discussion. Consider the following dialogue, a small portion of a discussion on the problem of evil:

...and therefore I absolutely renounce all higher harmony. It is not worth one little tear of even that one tormented child who beat her chest with her little fist and prayed to 'dear God' in a stinking outhouse with her unredeemed tears! Not worth it, because her tears remained unredeemed. They must be redeemed, otherwise there can be no harmony. But how, how will you redeem them? Is it possible? Can they be redeemed by being avenged? But what do I care if they are avenged, what do I care if the tormentors are in hell, what can hell set right here, if these ones have already been tormented? And where is the harmony, if there is hell?...I don't want harmony, for love of mankind I don't want it. I want to remain with unrequited suffering. I'd rather remain with my unrequited suffering and my unquenched indignation, even if I am wrong. Besides, they have put too high a price on harmony; we can't afford to pay so much for admission. And therefore I hasten to return my ticket....which is what I am doing. It's not that I don't accept God, Alyosha, I just most respectfully return him the ticket."

The entire novel is filled with conversations on compassion, faith, God, sin—the biggies. When I read it, I was struck by the dialogue's unique style. It challenged me, not just as a reader, but as a human being, to explore my own thoughts. I could see my own ideas through the characters' vantages, and although Ivan, Dmitri, and Alyosha were not always able to articulate their convictions, the words they used sounded like my own inner monologues. I shared in their struggles to understand, and I grew more decisive as they did.

And that's what is missing from modern storytelling, precisely because our stories are not modern at all—they are postmodern. Our dialogue in art reflects our actual dialogue, which is largely either waffling and noncommittal or insolent and satirical. When we take offense at every opinion and villanize every solid stance, not for its substance but for its existence, it's no wonder that our literary characters hint rather than declare. We have rebelled forcefully against modernism and now fall too often into insipidity. Authentic, straightforward storytelling is difficult to master, but it's a valuable tool too often overlooked.

Metaphor can be powerful and effective, but we overuse it to our detriment. Let's add another skill to our repertoire: candor. Both in art and in life, let's peel back the layers of ambiguity and for once, naked and raw, say what we mean.

A 12-Bar Christmas Carol, Sung by a Chorus of Vikings: An Assessment of Led Zeppelin

By Josh Corman

The Ghost of Zeppelin Past

Robert Plant (left) wore those jeans from 1968-1971,
when he finally had to be cut out of them.

For probably four solid months after I got my driver's license, my in-car listening pattern went something like: I, II, III, IV, Houses of The Holy, Physical Graffiti; repeat, with little variation. If you're wondering why Presence, In Through the Out Door, or Coda didn't join the rotation, it's because I'd heard that those three albums represented a pretty sharp decline in quality, and since I could not at that time imagine a reality in which everything the Great Zep touched did not turn instantly and irrevocably into gold, I avoided them, just in case it was true. Instead, I added the live compilation BBC Sessions into the mix and was waiting in line at Wal-Mart when How the West Was Won, their remastered three-disc live album culled mostly from their swaggering prime, went on sale. Led Zeppelin stormed the castle, and they almost took the keep. Many were the moments (most of them probably right in the middle of "When the Levee Breaks") when I sat in contemplation, wondering if Zeppelin had not indeed taken over the title of my favorite band of all time.

I stopped wondering after a while. The Fab Four built an impenetrable fortress atop my musical mountain, and Zep was content to set up residence on a minor outcrop just below the summit, where they have stayed ever since.

I know I'm throwing a lot of metaphors at you, but this is important.

A few months ago, Emily, Jonny, and I were having a conversation about possible VI pieces, and Emily intimated that she had an idea that had been brewing for quite some time, but that she wanted to run it by me first. Led Zeppelin had started to annoy her, she said. She probably heard the breath catch in my throat and imagined me going into cardiac arrest, because she took speedy pains to qualify her position. Mostly, she chalked it up to living in Los Angeles and being pummeled with Led Zeppelin by just about every radio station upon which she stumbled. "Stairway to Heaven," "Kashmir," and "Whole Lotta Love," over and over and over. She said she still "liked" them (I could hear the air-quotes in her voice) in some general sense, or maybe it was that she "understood" why some people - some people, as though she'd forgotten who she was talking to - really like them, but they just weren't for her anymore, except in small doses.

So she wanted to write a piece about how Led Zeppelin had reached critical mass in her life and how this saturation had driven her to confer upon the mighty Zep that most damning of honorifics: overrated.

Gasp. Shudder. The horror.

I gave Emily's idea an immediate thumbs up. I wanted a crack at writing the response, after all. Well, like I said, that was months ago. Time has run out, and I'm launching a preemptive strike, as it were (from what I understand, those always end well).

The Ghost of Zeppelin Present


This will not, despite all appearances, morph into a diatribe on why Led Zeppelin is incredible and Emily (or anyone else) is insane for believing otherwise. The truth is that Emily's proposed piece actually got me thinking. As I considered all that I might say in response to her claims of Zeppelin's limitations, I actually saw more legitimacy in them than I would have believed.

So I went back to the source. I threw on III (For those not prone to "getting the Led out," Zeppelin's first four albums were designated simply by Roman numerals) and tried to listen through the ears of someone who didn't once adore this music so intensely that it bordered on solipsism. This is an intensely difficult endeavor, as you might imagine. Thankfully for the sake of the experiment, the first track on III is "Immigrant Song," which, if I'm guessing, is probably in the top six Led Zeppelin tunes currently played on the radio. (The others are probably, in some order, "Stairway," "Kashmir," "Whole Lotta Love," "Heartbreaker," and either "Black Dog" or "Rock and Roll.") I've never thought of this song as one of Zep's best efforts, but then, I wouldn't consider any of the songs I've just listed among my personal Top Ten. I mean, they all have a seat at the bargaining table (except maybe "Kashmir," which has always seemed lacking), but after the initial shine wore off, they all settled far below my personal view of the band's apex.

I would wager that for a great many people—a majority of them like Emily, who has heard other Led Zeppelin, but for whom the radio hits have come to represent most of what the band is—these few songs have presented Zeppelin as a horribly repetitive group with little to recommend it beyond sheer bombast.

Now, none of this is to say Oh, if only the sad masses got to know the brilliance of Led Zeppelin's deep cuts, they'd be instant converts. That is condescending and doesn't really do much general Zeppelin discourse. I'm simply pointing out that, like a lot of bands, Zeppelin's most radio friendly songs don't really do the band justice. On III alone, after "Immigrant Song," we're treated to an acoustic folk-boogie ("Friends"), a slow-burning blues howler ("Since I've Been Loving You"), a sing-along pop gem ("Tangerine"), and a bluegrass-infused ramble ("Bron-Y-Aur Stomp"), mixed in among the straight-ahead rockers (and even then, "Celebration Day" and "Out on the Tiles" reflect the group's versatility and flair better than "Immigrant Song"). The point is, anybody who is repeatedly and almost exclusively bludgeoned with only the brawny heavyweights in Zeppelin's catalogue is bound to find them lacking.

The whole 'seeing the band through different eyes' thing didn't do much to change my perception of Led Zeppelin, but I can openly admit now what I may not have been able to before. Phil Tallon wrote a few weeks ago about Parks and Recreation, and how Amy Poehler's character on that show loves her hometown both in spite of and, in some cases, because of its flaws. That's how I feel about Led Zeppelin. I know that seven-minute drum solos on studio recordings are needlessly indulgent, but I love "Moby Dick" anyway. I know that it's hard to take a band seriously when no fewer than three of their songs feature overt references to The Lord of the Rings (even if you love The Lord of the Rings), but I don't care. Led Zeppelin hit me at a time in my life and in such a way that I don't know that anything could completely pry them out now. They're excessive and silly and self-serious and obnoxious, but I don't care.

The Ghost of Zeppelin Future


It may sound from all this like I'm still that sixteen-year-old kid with a stack of Zeppelin CDs in my passengers seat, all those albums still cycling through my stereo. But the truth is that until today, I hadn't listened to a whole Led Zeppelin album in a long time, maybe as long as a year. Writing this brought me back to them, and before I popped III into the CD player, I was a little worried that the magic would be gone. But I feel that way all the time about a bunch of my favorite things. I've often worried that I don't really like The Beatles as much as I claim, that I've just become complacent, that I've kept them atop my personal musical totem pole out of habit as much as for any other reason. I've done the same thing with the Star Wars films and The Lord of the Rings novels.

I become legitimately concerned about these things. And then the first chord hits, or I watch that yellow text crawling across space, or I read the first few lines, and I ready myself for a long-awaited party.

By Josh Corman

Follow me on Twitter @JoshACorman

It's the End of Summer As I Know It (and I Feel Fine)

By Josh Corman

Clever Alice Cooper Reference

Arne Duncan and President Obama plotting the destruction of summer.
Hilarious.

When I was a kid, I heard the old expression, credited to Ben Franklin, that you can count on just two things in this world: death and taxes. With all due respect to our most quotable founding father, I  disagreed from the moment I heard the quip. For most school-age children in this country, the concepts of both death and taxes are mere abstractions, their inevitability a distant, vague proposition. So if eight-year-old me had been allowed to amend Franklin's aphorism, I would have added to it something that I really did feel would happen every year like clockwork, something I felt was my God-given right as an American, something I would fight for, if it came to that. Death? Sure. Taxes? Fine. But the thing I could always count on? Summer vacation.

From early June through mid-August for every year of my public education, I was free. I played in the yard, watched or played baseball six hours a day (and organized, reorganized, and shelved baseball cards for another two—great practice for bookshelves or record collections), ate lunch whenever I wanted, went swimming, jumped on the trampoline, skipped stones (seriously), learned the game of golf, and read every book I could get my hands on, among about a hundred other things. It was wonderful, even when it was boring. Summer vacation was how I learned to be by myself, to find entertainment off the beaten path, to terrorize my little sister in inventive new ways. Without it, I'm sure I wouldn't be the person I am today (nor would my sister, for that matter, but her nightmares are down to two nights a week, tops).

Increasingly, though, the rumblings from those highest of higher-ups in education spell doom for the traditional summer vacation. Death and Taxes indeed.

Time on Our Hands


The first question to ask about the end of summer vacation is why? Why put an end to this most beloved of childhood rituals?

The answers from those dark, nefarious forces aiming to squelch everyone's good time are surprisingly persuasive. On the one hand, the discussion over America's global competition in the academic realm has taken center stage. Both President Obama and Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, have taken pains to point out the need for more globally competitive students as they outline proposals and policies. Chief among the president's suggestions has been lengthening the amount of time students spend in school, either by extending the school day or the school year. My knee-jerk reaction as a teacher (it would have been the same when I was a student) is to boo loudly and frequently, but if I'm honest, I know that my vitriol is primarily the result of selfishness. I like being done with work before 4:00 PM, and I love having summers off.

But if I look at the issue more objectively, that is, if I try to see the issue simply in terms of problems and solutions, it seems, initially at least, difficult to argue with a longer school day and a longer school year. Consider, as Malcolm Gladwell points out in his fantastic book Outliers, that students in many Asian and European countries spend about 250 days a year in school, compared to the average American student's 180-190. Kids in the U.S., especially those with long summer breaks, are shown routinely to retain fewer of the skills and less knowledge than those who have a shortened summer vacation. This is even more true for kids in lower socio-economic strata, because it's likely that they're not being read to or taken to museums or enrolled in summer camp programs that might help bridge some of the wide gap between school years.

Isn't it obvious that kids who spend 25% more time learning to master skills will be better at those skills (and potentially given more time in which to master them, meaning fewer rushed lessons and fewer kids being turned off math because they took longer to understand its underlying principles)? Isn't it clear that taking immense amounts of time without any sort of targeted instruction throws an enormous wrench into kids' ability to learn?

Of course it is. But you and I both know that it isn't the whole story, either.

What We Do With the Time That Is Given to Us


I graduated high school with somebody who went to MIT. One of my best friends is at NYU law school. Another friend has studied at Oxford. All of these people had lengthy summer vacations. They all engaged their minds in a variety of ways, looked for education in a broader sense, everywhere they could. The latter two goofed around a lot and spent a lot of time doing things that no sane person would consider intellectually beneficial. And yet, there they are, smart, decent human beings with a lot to offer the world.

I'm less concerned with asking the question, "But what would they have been able to accomplish with all that extra learning time?" than asking, "What would they have missed out on if they'd been cooped up in a classroom sixty-five extra days a year?" The reason the second question interests me more is that I think I know the answer to the first one, but I'm much less certain about the second. I would hope that they would have still developed some of the same extra-curricular interests and met the same friends and been able to use their time free from school to experience some of the incredibly formative moments of their youths, but I don't know if that's accurate.

Thinking about this makes me realize how delicate a balance the relationship is between structured learning time and those moments which are, at least on their surface, totally removed from intellectual or academic concerns. I would distrust anyone who said we didn't need both, but I have no idea what the exact balance between the two should look like.

Perhaps we can take a clue from Sir Ken Robinson, whose TED talks are among the most viewed in the website's history (his first one, titled "Schools Kill Creativity," is actually #1). Robinson points out that schools very often do a piss-poor job of adapting to the needs of students whose strengths lie outside of the traditional spectrum of academic subjects (math, science, languages, etc.). He claims that an alien looking down on Western education could only conclude that its purpose is to produce university professors. Think about the kids you went to school with. Who finished at the top of the class? What was most valued in those students by their teachers? Maybe you're like Emily, who in her post on creativity last week admitted that she had submerged her more creative instincts in the interest of more measurable academic skills. (She was class salutatorian, by the way.) How many kids are like her? How many aren't capable of succeeding in school like she did because their intelligence isn't as varied or adaptable as hers? How many feel like they aren't good at anything only because what they were good at wasn't valued by their schools? Robinson says it's this last thought that bothers him most.

And it should. Because when it comes to education reform, we assume that students should essentially be treated the same, that there's one way to define intelligence and that, therefore, the most practical answer to the question, "How do we make our schools better and our students stronger?" is to make the school day longer and shorten summer vacation, rather than question the value of what we're teaching them to be.

Maybe we will have to spend more time in school. But first, we should ask ourselves what the value of time outside of school is and see if we can't learn a little something from summer vacation that would apply nicely inside a classroom. What if we used those extra sixty-five days to let kids explore their passions and interests outside of the core content subjects? What if we acknowledged that just because kids are out of school, that doesn't mean that they aren't learning constantly, turning themselves into the types of people we want to succeed in our culture—not just because they're smart or they did well in school, but because they're assured of who they are, confident in what they do, and capable of a more rounded view of the world.

If we fill our schools with students like that, they will leave school and build a richer society once they're out in the world. I'd take that outcome, even if we still finish behind France in the TIMMS test, 'cause I bet we'd beat their asses in Calvinball.

On Creativity, Continued: Execution

By Jonny Walls

I've spent the last thirteen years in pursuit of a career in creativity. In high school and a few years beyond, it was music. For the last six years, it's been film.

On Wednesday, Emily posted an incredibly insightful piece about the importance of creativity. Creativity, she argues, belongs to everyone, even those, like herself, who grew up erroneously believing themselves uncreative. An important tenet of Emily's thesis is that creativity is often undervalued, sometimes to a startling degree, in our modern mindsets. I agree, and so propose we keep the creativity train rolling through the weekend.

Now What?

So you're fresh off Emily's rousing call to creative arms and have found your mind flooded with fresh ideas and memories of youthful schemes that went ever undone. You've discovered a new spring in your step that you forgot ever existed. You're floating on the winds of hope and rediscovered wonder.

Well I'm here to bring you back down.

Creativity isn't all excitement, fleeting images, and wild experimentation; it requires application as well. It's not enough to rediscover the slumbering bear of creativity hibernating in the wintery cave of our subconscious; we must brave the beast and wake it. (A decidedly uncreative analogy, yes, but deliciously ironic. Am I right?)

I've by no means been a paragon of creative success and innovation, but I have figured a few things out along the way.

Hold on there, Jackson...

Let's dispel a popular myth that creativity and organization are somehow dichotomous. Somewhere floating around is the notion that creatives are all free-spirited, wind riding forest sprites who could no more condescend to bother with good grammar than they could tidy their work spaces (not that they could ever be contained by any such conformist cubicles of oppression anyway.) Granted, every mind works differently, but it has been my discovery that organization is not only in harmony with creativity, it is a distinct aid unto it.

For me, anything from a messy work space to haphazard digital file management can act as a creativity suppressant. Even if only on a subconscious level, clutter is just one more thing to preoccupy our mind-power and weigh our creativity down. If I'm editing a film, I shouldn't be wondering where, out of five possible locations, one particular root file may be. I want to dedicate my concentration to the flow of the story and the rhythm of the piece. Knowing that every file is safe and cozy where it ought to be is downright liberating. Clear out the clutter, overthrow disorganization, and watch your creativity blossom, unhindered.

It's All Been Said More Effectively Before

In the last two years, not including all of my paying work, I have edited a now published book, co-written a travel memoir exceeding 100,000 words (three drafts), written a feature length screenplay (eight drafts), written twenty-seven blog entries, collaborated on a friend's graphic novel, performed all parts for and recorded a song, performed drums and contributed to arrangements for a friend's music project, written, directed and edited a short film, written three short stories, worked on numerous friends' projects and short films, am currently writing another feature length screenplay, am currently collaborating on a web series, and am in pre-production for another short film I wrote and will direct.

Oh, and I made a board game.

Yes, landing on Waffle House right out of the gate does earn you an extra turn.

Please understand, I'm not trying to impress you. (What a sad attempt it would be.) What I mean to point out is, I could have done more. I should have done more. I spent a lot of the last two years sitting on my ass, browsing the internet and wasting time. I spent more time staring at Facebook and espn.com than I did on all of those projects combined. Imagine what I may have accomplished if I had cut my wasted time in half.

I'm not the busiest person in the western hemisphere. There were times (extended times) when business was slow. But even when I was working every day, I would find time to get my own creative work done. If you are serious about uncorking your creativity, you have no excuses. You must sit down, clench your teeth, and do something. Talk can be good. It can help you organize your ideas, to flesh them out, but it only takes you a fraction of the way. We need tangible results here, people. Get it done. Write that story. Go to the store, buy the materials, clean out the garage, and start painting. Find someone with a camera and a Mac and shoot that short film. Do it.

Collaboration is Key

When I was slogging through a drastic revamp of my screenplay a few weeks ago, I hit a brick wall. I couldn't get through a certain obstacle, no matter how I tried. I wracked my brain and spent days, literally, in misery. Finally I called a friend. He already knew the basic story, so I talked him through the specific points of my issue, and he started throwing around ideas, and then I started throwing around ideas based on his ideas, and then new ideas were born out of a seed that his ideas planted in my mind, and then he began sprouting new ideas based on my new ideas, and then two of our ideas collided in mid-air and showered sparks and caught the couch on fire, and the next thing I knew I was picking ideas like fruit off of a tree (and treating my idea-burns). It was like a laser bouncing back and forth between two mirrors, gaining intensity by the moment. (I have no idea if that actually works.)

When I finish a screenplay, a story, a rough cut, anything, I don't pat myself on the back and congratulate myself on a job done. I send it to every willing person I know. I sit down with a group of seven or eight friends and read through my screenplays aloud. I let people watch rough cuts and hope they'll catch any awkward cuts that eluded my tired eyes. I tell them that I appreciate their praise, but what I really want is the criticism. There is simply no way to squeeze every bit of juice out of an idea with one pair of hands alone. A second pair will come in from a different angle and hit a fresh patch of that same fruit that you didn't even know was there.

You don't have to keep every idea. I certainly don't. Remember, it's your vision that in the end must be accomplished. Sometimes the ideas I'm given go straight in the trash. Sometimes they lead to separate ideas I keep. Sometimes I take the ideas outright and claim them as my own (the true secret to creative success), but I am always, always, better for it. Collaboration is the anvil upon which any and all singular visions can be molded to size and made perfect. No exceptions.

In Summary...

Creativity is part inspiration, part execution. As Emily pointed out, sometimes the inspiration bit is cast aside before it even has a chance to take root. But just as often, the seeds of inspiration are planted and left untended. Creativity doesn't just happen. While geniuses like Steinbeck and Wes Anderson and Van Gogh and Thom Yorke tend to make it seem effortless, it's an illusion. It's anything but.

Now go. Wake the bear.

By Jonny Walls

On Creativity

By Emily Walls

Imagine this: You are locked in a windowless room on the second story of a commercial building. You have with you a handful of binders, a legal pad, one (1) pen and one (1) green marker, several paperclips, a stapler, a Norman Rockwell calendar, and a desk. On that desk you have a computer, which is equipped with Word and Excel only. No Internet. No phone. No one else. How many hours do you think will go by before you begin composing a 29-stanza poem about a young girl who brutally murders a Microsoft icon?

For me, the answer was 114 hours.

When I was in the fourth grade, my teacher announced one day that the school would be offering an extra art class for those who showed particular giftedness in the visual arts. She passed out a small test—a single page with three simple shapes that we were to draw at double size—and explained that if we were interested in the class, we could submit our completed exams and wait for the results.

I was excited. I had never produced anything less than A material in all subjects, I was already participating in an accelerated school program, and I was motivated. Chance of rejection: zero.

So I gave up my recess that day to stay in and work on my test, painstakingly measuring each shape with a ruler and carefully copying the shapes at twice their sizes. I handed in my paper, confident that I would be accepted. A few days later, my teacher posted a paper with the names of accepted students, and I was horrified to discover that my name was not among them. I did not understand then what I know now: Art is not about rulers and grids.

I walked away from my fourth grade experience with new perspective on my place in the artistic community, and though I gained valuable humility and insight into the nature of art and creativity, I simultaneously bought into a profound fallacy that all creativity equals visual art. Since I was not good at drawing, I reasoned, I must essentially lack creativity. Add to that the further segregation of subjects in school and exposure to right-brain/left-brain concepts, and I became fully convinced that I simply was not a creative person. There were creatives and there were non-creatives, and I was the latter.

I built my education on this false premise, concentrating on subjects that could be measured, skills that could be calculated. I had a natural aptitude for writing, but I feared the demands of creative writing courses, so instead of majoring in English in college, I majored in business. I took finance and accounting courses and learned about target markets and interest rates.

And I was right about certain things. I am crazy good at whipping up spreadsheets. I have a talent for organizing ideas, and I can make order from chaos. I’m good at creating systems that make processes faster and smoother. Plus, I have great spatial reasoning, which comes in handy for packing cars on road trips.

Do you know what I suck at? Picking out two colors that look good together. Telling the difference between Arial and Helvetica. Knowing what “white space” is. Layering clothing.

I spent six years post college keeping myself in the lands of Reason, Logic, and Fact, because creativity was not for me. I worked several different jobs – some I liked, some I didn’t – and for one month of 2011, I took a temp position working in a windowless office on the second floor of a commercial building, my only companions a desk, a handful of office supplies, and Microsoft Word. One hundred fourteen working hours and 29 stanzas about murder later, I came to an important – no, essential – conclusion: Creativity belongs to everyone.

I was contracted to work forty hours per week in that position, but the job I was hired to do sometimes took me one hour per day to accomplish, and one time just seven minutes. I begged for more work from my supervisor and coworkers, but they told me there was nothing more for me to do and that I should go to my office and read for the rest of the day. Eyes can only take so much small print, so I spent an alarming number of hours staring at a blank wall. After a few of those hours, I was amazed to find my mind teeming with crazy ideas – comic strips, stories, poems, and the like. I built cities out of staples and file folders. I made origami Star Wars figures. I drew pictures (crude though they were) and made up characters. I wrote Verbal Infusion's first post with pen and paper at that desk.

I found that when you strip away the distractions, your mind will fill the void with your own unique thoughts, and your mind is alive and alight with creativity, even if you’re the kind of person who thinks Papyrus is the font of the future.

That temp job is long over, but I learned from it that I need to make time for reflection and doodling, that I need to intentionally seek inspiration. So I now set aside time to check out my friends' design work on The Fresh Exchange and A Pair of Pears. I watch TED Talks every now and then to see what brilliant people are doing in fields wildly different from my own. I take breaks from romantic comedies to watch movies that challenge me mentally and amaze me visually. And after I’ve done that, I sit quietly and think. And then I create.

Links to the Present - 4/24/12

We here at the Infusion are taking Tuesdays to share a little of what's caught our fancy over the preceding week. We call it "Links to the Present." Peruse our offerings and give the article titles a click.


A Point of View: In Defense of Obscure Words - BBC columnist Will Self derides the paucity of personages amenable to engaging with obstreperous parlance (the lack of people willing to read works that use difficult words).

Insane 'Tube Transport' Will Zip You From New York to L.A. in 45 Minutes - This brief animation lays out the general schematic for an energy-efficient travel system that could probably make your commute shorter than the time it takes for you to key your car's ignition.

Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: Eight Experts on Who's Greater - Tired of seeing endlessly reductive internet polls and rankings that unfairly simplify legitimately complex debates? Me neither! Seriously though, some heavy duty Russian scholars tackle the age old question while simultaneously giving me a hankering for Borscht and The Brothers Karamazov.

Five Things Alfred Hitchcock's Films Taught Me - On the lighter side, the British Film Institute's Heather Stewart (no relation to Jimmy, presumably) noted recently that Hitchcock might deserve to be on Britain's national curriculum alongside Shakespeare. Ann Billson contemplates what the Master of Suspense can teach us.

This is just horrible.  In another sector of "British film," this couple pays 750 pounds for what some are calling the worst wedding photos ever. As you will see they are...shockingly bad. According to this source for the same story, part of the reason for the blurry photos was a self-proclaimed "epileptic photographer" who couldn't safely use a flash. There is nothing funny about epilepsy, but maybe, just maybe, that guy is in the wrong business.