Posts Tagged structure

A Blitz, of Sorts

“Mind without Meat”

Blank page
Blank mind
Mind your manners
Mined for answers
Answers forthcoming
Answers without questions
Questions are annoying
Questions your integrity
Integrity is wholesome
Integrity is rare
Rare is the bird
Rare but not undercooked
Undercooked meat
Undercooked ideas
Ideas are like butterflies
Ideas are cheap
Cheap eats aren’t always good eats
Cheap drinks can be costly
Costly phrases for the ages
Costly plays make a great game
Game of thrones
Game of loans
Loans are not investments
Loans and savings
Savings are not leavings
Savings and groans
Groans at the thought of leaving
Groans at the thought of staying
Staying true to yourself
Staying the hand that strikes you
You wish you knew what it was all about
You never really know until you do
Do you know the song of love
Due to an unfortunate miscalculation
Miscalculation is the art of finesse
Miss Calculation would make a good name for a math teacher
Teacher said I was smart
Teach her well so she will succeed
Succeed where others were sure you’d fail
Succeed at what no other would try
Try to bend the rules now and then
Try to not want
Want what you can never try
Want some bitters to go with your gravy
Gravy is as gravy does
Gravy is the icing on the cake of the meat
Meat and cheese and vegetables and bread
Meet the cheesiest one of all
All
Bread

Okay, that was pretty weird. It’s my half-hearted attempt at a poetic form I just learned about, called a “blitz” poem. I didn’t quite follow the rules correctly, and I certainly didn’t make any effort to plan it out so it would be any good. So it’s basically nonsense. But it was kinda fun to put together.

If I wasn’t so cold and tired and busy, I might actually enjoy sitting down and crafting one properly so as to actually express something beyond the weirdness of how my mind associates phrases when left unguided. But even just the exercise of barfing out a technical example was somewhat enjoyable.

I like structure for its own sake, sometimes. Creativity thrives when facing limitations, and fades when there are no boundaries to lean and pull against.

Creativity, in other words, is a tomato plant.


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Hopping Half

Another magic effect for your viewing pleasure:

As some of you know, I have formally studied stand up comedy writing and presenting as an art, as part of my pursuit of excellence in preaching (or whatever we call it). My brother Pearse tells me that (I think) Malcolm Gladwell says an expert is someone who has put 10,000 hours into their particular skill/craft/art/etc. I will never hit 10,000 hours as a public speaker if I only do it once a week. Even without any weeks off, that’ll take over 190 years. So I practice.

But I also study. And I’m a big believer in multi-disciplinary cross-training. You’ve already heard my initial thoughts on what stage magic can teach the preacher. I think the most valuable lessons stand up comedy has taught me have to do with structure and with timing. I originally started stand up because I realized that public speaking no longer made me nervous, which I took as a sign that I was no longer growing in that art. When your weight training workout no longer leaves your muscles sore, it’s past time to add on some weights, right?

So I took up comedy because, frankly, it terrified me. In stand up you get almost instantaneous feedback, moment by moment, of exactly how badly you are failing. And comedy writing is one of the most demanding and unforgiving forms of verbal communication ever attempted by man. A comedian can go from killing the crowd to drowning in his own flop sweat with the addition of just an extra syllable to his punch line.

Anyway, (and yes, I know I’m rambling, today), it very recently occurred to me that comedy and magic have so many structural/architectural parallels to one another that they are almost topologically identical! For instance, both are totally dependent upon misdirection: in magic, misdirection (either temporal, spatial or kinetic) causes the spectator to think one thing is happening, and when it has been revealed that something else has happened, the surprise causes delight; in comedy, the setup creates a “first story” in the spectator’s mind that is shattered when the punch line reveals that a “second story” was the truth all along, thus leading to surprise and delight.

Another example (that I suspect is also shared by musicians, by the way): in creating a comedian’s set list (magicians call it “routining”), a comedian will “hammock” their bits, usually putting the best material at the beginning and end, starting with something fast, finishing with something dramatic, hiding new stuff they’re still working out somewhere in the middle, and trying to overall build toward a climax. Magicians use the exact same “best trick at the end, second best at the beginning, sag a little in the middle” approach, with an emphasis on being quick hitting and visual with their opener.

It’s that first structural similarity that really gets me, though. Are there any other arts or crafts that depend so heavily on misdirection followed by surprise the way comedy and magic do?

Actually, I just remembered one: mystery writing!

Can anyone think of any others? What do you think about all this? Anyone else out there just love thinking about the “bones” of an art form like this?

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