Creativity: Theory and Application

I just wanted to talk about how incredibly different I view the subject of creativity after studying it in detail.

Before I took the course entitled, Creativity: Theory and Application, I saw Creativity as more of a fuzzy, non substantive, value assertion.

In fact, I think sometimes I thought that people just told people they were creative to make them feel better. In practice, I used to think that a complement of one’s creativity was in essence just an abstract participation ribbon.

I used to always think certain people were truly imaginative, and creative people. I have always been enamored with those who can effortlessly cultivate the greatest of ideas. Since I’ve finished the course, I have began to believe in my own creative talents more seriously. The result has been a growth in the way I think more conceptually of problems and assignments.

If there is one thing I will take away from this course, it will be the idea that with hard work, and a little openness to new ways of thinking, anyone could be the next great innovator! Well, I hope to see all of you soon on the cover of Time, as the newest bright mind in your respected field.

thanks, it’s been real!

Dan

“It’s indefenseble!” yelled the editor.

Although the above quote includes a word that might not actually be a word, the thought contains no confusion. The aforementioned line comes from the movie Shattered Glass, a film about the unethical rogue “culinary” journalism of the New Republic’s former staff columnist Stephen Glass.

The film depicts the rise an fall of the young writer and of his fictional Non-Fiction. His work masqueraded as hard news but later found more suitable for the pages of fictional novels. Stephen writes a story about a hacker gone millionaire, and finds that his best story would also be the his most scrutinized.

Relying on a house of cards for sources, Mr Glass tries to stave off source scrutiny with charm and deception. For example, when his editor, Chuck, tries to bridge a contact to the main character in Glass’ story, Stephen dismisses his editor’s attempt to get in touch with the hacker gone good with the line, “hackers have agents too.”

In the end, his story about the Hacker was found false for multiple reasons including the absolute impossibility of a convention in a building unable to accommodate more than a few people. In fact, 27 out of his 41 stories were found “cooked”, thus providing a question for further review. Does the aftermath of doing journalism wrong mean the writer’s “life is over”?

The movie provides one answer in that at the end it reveals to the viewer that Glass went on to get his Law degree and become a published Fiction writer. It always seemed present in this review that the story of Stephen Glass was a story of an individual that had picked the right profession, but just not the right job. It is obvious his real talent as a writer was his unbelievable imagination and quick charming wit, both great qualities for “hard news” stories, but maybe better suited for more creative pursuits in Fiction writing.

I think it is always a very American belief that everybody should get a couple of chances in life to be great. The making of mistakes is part of the making of greatness, or at least great character and humility. The Glass and Blair’s of the news community did more right than they did wrong. Their blasphemy raised the eyebrow’s of complacent management to replace incompetent editors, which means in the end, that the news that is offered today is under more factual scrutiny than ever before. Thus, the population of readers is the ultimate winner due to these “cooked” stories raising the overall game of our news community. It also taught a lesson to all future writers that the unethical acts of today will be revealed as a part of your future professional demise if found that your body of work is not a journal of truth!

In the end, I think the “indefensable” acts of unethical journalists should be treated two ways; disciplined and rehabilitated. Much like the story of Glass, the community of journalism should always dismiss and apologize for the lies that sneak into the printed history, but at the same time should always try to not dismiss the innate talent in some of these lost writers.

The humor of Borat is simply naive, yet confident enough to entertain guests with a creative portrayal of a character visiting America from the far away land of Kazakastan. At first, you have to laugh at Sasha Cohen’s depiction of a character devoid of any universal manners. It is creative, how incredibly civil Cohen can depict an individual that constantly degrades women by associating them as nothing more than the submissives of his delight. Yet, even as Borat was firing off incredibly offensive conversation pieces to women in his travels, all the women in the theatre were laughing uncontrollably.

The main idea of this movie is Borat. He is in America filming a movie for his home country intended to teach his uncivilized people the ways of America. However, convoluted as his actual desires to flim an informative movie were, he changes his campaign after watching an episode of Baywatch, and moreover watching the every movement of Pamela Anderson. He falls in love with the movie star, and takes off from NYC to LA to ask her to marry him.

At this point, I started to wonder if this movie could really steep below that of JackAss 2 in vulgarity. This question will most definitely be answered later.

Borat’s humor is so incredibly unbelievably naive, that the audience laughs more as a necessity to not stand out than anything. I am not purposrting that the movie did not have some moments of truly unique humor, I just didn’t find it as overally hilarious as its record breaking numbers at the box office have indicated.

Creativiely, the movie is shot like that of a documentary, yet in truth being nothing close to a documentary. This type of filming is not uniquely creative, but well done in repetition of past fake documentary comedies.

I did find the scene of Borat’s rodeo experience as unique in humor and writing. Instead of singing the American National Anthem as planned, Borat begins to sing some made up indictment of American occupation in Iraq to the tune of our National Anthem. This scene was truly funny.

However, the movie relied on about 12 minutes of full male nudity to carry it through the middle portions of the story. Not only were the two male characters nude, but also extremely inappropriate and gross. And at one point, I think I wanted to leave due to a very grotesque moment in this unfortunate 12 minutes.

At this point, the movie lost me, I started to think about whether it was of value to be creatively grotesque and uniquely motivated to push societal limits. I worry that the intrinsic nature of unique behavior to be valued due to its dangerous tenant of societal degradation.

But in the same way that Borat’s exploitations are shamefully testing limits of good taste, they might also be creatively ensuring the very marketplace that is essential in value to be free.

In essence, Borat’s utter disregard for class and manners is not creatively ilustrating a film different than any other vulgarity on the market, but his very obnoxious testing of good taste is also beneficial in keeping a stretched marketplace for other ideas of radical change. Without the free expression of the creative obscene antics of those most liberal and conservative, our public realm of source and domain would be incredibly more limiting. So, keep on grossing them out Borat, for your antics might keep the public sphere unlimited enough to inspire some sort of radical transformation.

Clayton celebrated the thirteenth annual Saint Louis Art Fair this weekend, September 8-10, in the heart of the district’s downtown. Stretching three blocks long by two blocks wide, artists of all different disciplines showcased thier various pieces. Art booths varied in content from glass blowers to horse portraits.

Executive Director, Cynthia Prost, was reported in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, as estimating the sales for the weekend to climb to a total of around 2.5 million dollars, while attracting close to a half million visitors to the Clayton area.

During friday nights fair opening tent showings, I witnessed nothing short of a complete success. Artists were educating guests, which in turn meant more guests were learning about more Art, which I witnessed to finally manifest as pleased guests enamored with their recently purchased piece of Saint Louis Fair Art. All in all, I was very impressed with the organization of the Fair, and in general the atmosphere that surrounded the diversity in Art, People, Food, Music, and Fun.

In the end,the Art Fair’s official web site’s,www.saintlouisartfair.com, mission statement summarized a desire by Fair planners for an event that provided access to diversity and culture in Art. Well, the Fair not only provided access for visitors to view this diversity temporarily tent to tent, but from what I witnessed, the Fair will also be talked about in family circles as the weekend participants finally found the missing piece to thier personal galleries.

The worlds of movie making and political science seem to be entrenched with the same entry difficulties that discourage the non -connected.

In “Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?”, Jeff Smith heroically inspires a grassroots US Congressional campaign only to come up short to a name rather than a set of better ideas.

In 2004, Jeff Smith decided to run for the Congressional seat vacated by Dick Gephart. As an unknown entry, Mr. Smith, threw his name in a group not too unlike the starting line of a marathon; crowded and full of uncertainty. The 29 year old teacher, optimistic and full of energy, was not even favored in this race by his own mother.

Smith’s mom is seen commenting on the race in rare documentary form, tongue in cheek.

Mrs. Smith said, “You’re not running for anything; you’re running away from a stable job.”

Others quipped to Mr. Smith, “You’re too young. (And my favorite) You need to fix that lisp.”

But even with all this opposition to Smith’s running, Frank Popper – Director, producer, and editor of the documentary – saw much positive in filming the candidate’s grassroots rise to close runner up. Popper explains the transcendent qualities of Jeff Smith’s political style.

Popper remembers, “One day I was at a book-signing event downtown, and Jeff was working the crowd,” Popper recalls. “He said, ‘Hi, I’m Jeff.’ And I said, ‘I know who you are.’ He said, ‘Yeah, you and 35 other people.’” It was a 30-second conversation. I sat down and said to the woman sitting next to me, ‘I think I’m going to make a documentary about him.’ It was a gut feeling.”

The film’s political worth has been seen parallel with its worth in film in movie circles, specifically, the piece received the Audience Award for Best Feature at Silverdocs AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Film Festival in June.

The arch of the film’s content follows Smith from the beginning selection of his campaign staff through its manifestation of a grassroots group to be reckoned. Set to the soundtrack of bluesy, city swooning tracks, St. Louis seems connected in the film by the unifying factor of local politics and their recognition of famous Missouri political families.

Viewers see Jeff run door to door trying to work any individual willing to listen before the peak campaigning hours end. Not just adept in the flesh, Jeff also works his cell phone as furiously as a wall street insider. Jeff’s calls are all connected by his most used phrase, “So, can I count on your support?” And then by the phrases, “Well, thanks again for your time.’ Or. ‘ Great I appreciate your support, do you think you could help contribute to the effort?”

In the film, Jeff’s campaign staff is seen working tirelessly stumping on Smith’s behalf. Taking a grassroots strategy, his staff made thousands of calls and planted hundreds of yard signs, both of which were filmed intimately in the documentary.

Popper stripped his directorial influence and shot what really happened; hard working political amateurs learning the ropes of a non utopian world of political science. In the end, when Jeff is seen wishing his hard working staff a bright future outside a coffee shop, the meeting ends with Jeff choking up and having to leave abruptly due to his emotional investment in his run for US Congress.

Much like Smith, Popper is finding film distribution to be as daunting a task as running for a federal election as an upstart unknown. The parallel between the two is as close to their relationship in the movie. It is ironic that a documentary about the ills of an entrenched political world is finding similar access issues to distribution in another closed society of film and television.

The ultimate issue for this documentary and its voice of just democracy is “Can Mr. Smith who couldn’t get to Washington yet, but did get to Jefferson City, land his documentary in Hollywood?”

When viewing the works of “artistic expression”, I sometimes find it hard to truly tune out all other stimuli thus creating a very rushed viewing. Frustrated attention deficits can occur from a range of details like that of other viewers, or internally as a personal dispreference for show, or even sometimes from a warehouse type gallery and its distracting disorganization.

Whatever the annoyance, I always remember the Milwaukee Museum of Art to visualize the calming overwhelming design of its main lobby. Every time I recall its place in my mind, I feel fresh in perspective. Even enamored as it exists as just a memory, I find great peace in retrieving the snapshots of the 30 foot high panels that so perfectly capture the beautiful panoramic tranquility of fluid running Great Lake waters.

Until Saturday, I had never found any match for the grand great lakes lobby in Milwaukee, almost ten years of travel here in the US and abroad still did not quite encapsulate the feeling of being alone in that representative basin of a boat in Wisconsin. And I had dined at the top of the Greek Isle Santorini during dusk!

Well, it is reassuring to know that I do not need to retrieve those Wisconsin memories anymore. Right here in St. Louis exists a building and a space philosophy that rivals nothing I have ever seen before in qualities of peaceful influence. In fact, the architecture of my calming dreams exists downtown as the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. I’m absolutely sure that the art director of the Foundation could never put together a show more glorious than the very house that shelters the various exhibitions.

The transcendental beauty of timeless geometric shapes is in their simplicity. I guarantee sweeping metaphysical impacts to all who enter the museum which is ironically shaped like a rectangular gift. Once inside its heavenly tidings, the perfect design of its blueprint is analogous to the feeling the fabric of your most favorite blanket.

In the Tadao Ando architectural spaces of The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, a meditative quality exists within its encapsulating escape from clutter. After reading much theory about transformative creativity, it was just understood that Ando had witnessed his very own perfect cycle of creativity. He truly created a gallery in the clouds. It is almost an intuition that the guest feels when present inside another’s truly grand statement of just design.

Like a perfect breeze under a Fall tree, the Pulitzer is an expression in a vernacular of domain-breaking beauty.

The architect expounds upon his design as “basically just two simple rectangles.” Our designer illustrates a simple humility that seems key to transmit such visions of perfect balance. Arrogance is too shortsighted to visualize ideas manifest as a house capable of influencing the meditation to all who enjoy its shelter.

Ando continues his intent when he adds the caveat, “but as you enter this simple figure or box, you discover a space that is complex and rich. Once you’re inside, you learn things that could not be foreseen from the outside.”

The unforeseen contained inside can only be most defined as tranquil and sublime. Do know that the building is an inanimate structure of concrete, yet it exists like a comforting friend following beside the viewer; their bond silent and unspoken.

Some find peace in the free exercise of religion. Similarly, this place of minimalist worship is as touching as any alter I have experienced. I’m not speaking in hyperbole when I say the meditation I exercised was nothing short of self actualization. Everything present in my conscientiousness was absent once I breathed in the enormous welcoming moments of this declaration of destiny.

The Foundation maintains this unabridged meditative experience by choosing not to invade the inspiring space with disruptive accompanying footnotes to the modernist pieces of portraiture. To further elaborate the peace one should feel in the solemn company in Art, the gallery lends each of its’ storytellers the space necessary to remain expressively pure.

The whispers of modernist expression begin to take voice within the blanketing simplicity of Mr. Ando’s most famous gray walls. The architect explains his fancy with structural constitution, “Walls are the most basic elements of architecture, and in all my works, light is an important factor. The primary reason is to create a place for the individual, a zone for oneself within society.”

This most private zone of personal introspection finds solace in the intrigue of a few very gentle giants placed parallel inside the various altitudes of the “Lower Corridor”. At one right angle of this unfolding rectangle exists the magnificently detailed acrylic on canvas portrait, simply introduced to the viewer as Kieth, by photographic stylist, Mr. Chuck Close. This bust portraiture of a man’s face stands close to 12 feet tall and 6 feet wide, yet finds a technique capable of illustrating even the most accurate details of facial pore composition.

Chuck Close is an artist with an incredibly intriguing story of talent and perseverance. Mr. Close recreates all of his billboard sized, expressionless portraits from simple snapshots. Even more perplexing is the fact that Close in 1998, suffered a collapsed spinal artery, which left him almost completely paralyzed. A brace device on his partially mobile hand, and a sophisticated wheelchair, along with other aids allow him to paint these billboard perfections. His story is one of sheer amazement. It is only fitting his work finds peace in such a loving gallery.

The near silent ballet of playful lights provide just the slightest insightful nudge to lead the viewer to view a Pulitzer mainstay, permanently at peace as the color study between blue and black, thus appropriately titled Blue Black. This unbelievable structure I refer to as the Pulitzer minimalist totem pole, its undeniable clarity in message and simplicity provides further constitution for the already affected viewer that they are in the presence of greatness. It stretches to nearly the height of its intersecting slab of ceiling, these painted aluminum panels by Kelly Ellsworth serve all Pulitzer exhibitions as a mission statement to simple integrity, reflecting its shelter’s personality of a quiet thoughtfulness.

In between the stark contrasts of over sized simplicity and tactical wonderment, exist a Doris Salcedo collection of stainless steel free form objects, existing as the only true contours to perfect inoffensive Zen congruency.

Before being swept into the whimsical existence of viewing this truly interactive structure, this feature’s intent was to view the fundamental differences between classic portraiture and that of its modernist offspring.

Fortunately, for those who visit this show with similar questions, they can quickly find answers directly hanging on the walls of the Cube Gallery. Specifically, the juxtaposition in portraiture era is strikingly present in the imitative works of Cindy Sherman. As a collection, these photographs are at first glance, very classic in pose, color, and prop. Yet as the viewer begins to delve further into Sherman’s work, a very modernist theme of nude censorship becomes apparent as the link between classic and modernist portraiture. While classics are defined by an attempt to convey psychological insights, the modern portraiture focuses its photographic or satirical inquiries into a concern for the individuality or physicality of the human identity. These modernist intents are most found in the Sherman use of nude body suits in our modern portraiture, thus creating a collection of insecurity and false identity.

Cindy Sherman’s work also contains a specific balance in masculinity and feminism, her works are both introverted and extroverted. Each manifestation carries a full range of personality, her work illustrates the balance necessary to be unintrusively complex in creativity.

As our society continues to move closer towards a more progressive and advanced reality, creativity looks more like an emergent social process than just another form of individual entertainment.

The emergent social collaboration present within the Pulitzer Experience is like nothing I have ever witnessed before. In fact, since I was ever first instructed to read the writings of the American Romantics, I have always wished to be present in an environment that is possible of Emersonian Transcendentalism. This spiritual building is truly the ideal introspective stomping ground necessary to meditate as one with structural, and natural harmony. It is almost as if you can hear the words of Emerson and his transcendental belief in the One that connects the metaphysical and natural spirit in harmony as something celestial and transformative.

This Just In! The Pageant is the St. Louis Choice Award winner for “Best place to take a not so attractive date!” and “Least use of modern electricity ever!”

Without this knowledge in hand, I ventured into the Jim Gaffigan show expecting to be able to see a few obvious sights. First, another human being, other than the comic on stage, like the person sitting next to me would have been easy. I was in shock that “it” existed in the seat next to me yet was not discernible to the naked eye. I’m sure somewhere in the building, night vision goggles were being peddled.

Please donate money to the Pageant today!! Afraid of the dark? Conquer your fear today and enjoy Space’s own prime time act, the black hole, for no extra charge!

Or, how about a stage? I am still not convinced that Mr. Gaffigan isn’t a hologram. If it wasn’t for the fact that Mr. Gaffigan’s natural skin hue is that of an ultraviolet white, he might have been lost forever in eternal darkness.

“Bald, blind and pale. I’m like a gigantic recessive gene,” he says on stage. “My father was from Sweden and my mother was Elton John.”
– Rocky Mountain News, 1/26/06

Thankfully, his pale features radiated like a star in the theater’s cloak of blinding midnight darkness. His stature’s starry reflection was not the only feature celestial about Mr. Jim Gaffigan.

Among other hobbies, Jim finds himself very much intrigued with the phenomena of inertia.

“I’m kinda consumed with inertia. It’s like I’m always amazed at how you walk through an electric door and you feel a little bit empowered when you step and it opens. You’re like, ‘Well, I don’t mind if I do. Thank you electric doorman’!”
– Jim Gaffigan, comic

Originally from Indiana, the balding, fair-haired Gaffigan moved to New York in 1990, and after relentlessly working stand-up rooms around town, he got his big break in 1999 with a slot on Letterman. Not only was Letterman calling, but so was Conan, and Hollywood.

An off-beat production group, calling themselves Broken Lizard, contacted Jim for a bit role in the mega hit Super Troopers, Gaffigan’s scene became a cult favorite.

In the scene, Jim plays a motorist who gets pulled over by a state highway trooper, only to witness the officers that approach unable to end their sentences without muttering “Meow”, Jim begins to laugh at the abnormality and is scolded by the officer in what remains a cult comedy classic.

Albeit, a recognizable bit actor, Jim’s bread and butter is his ability to perform an observational type comedic monologue. As an example of Gaffigan’s comedic process, Jim finds humor in such products as Hot Pockets, and Cheeto’s; while also finding laughs with overtly concave statements like those he makes about his pregnant wife.

“My wife has gotten really lazy, or as she calls it, ‘pregnant.’” — Jim Gaffigan

He also jokes about laughing at the expense of punk teenagers who lack hand-eye coordination.

“Maybe it’s just me. But when you see a teenager fall off a skateboard doesn’t it put you in good mood?” — Jim Gaffigan

His musings about addiction are more unique for their timing in execution than in the joke’s substance alone.

“I watch a lot of T.V., I drink a lot of coffee, but you know what’s really addictive? Heroin.”
– Jim Gaffigan

Another favorite shtick of Jim’s comedy is his depiction of the slow and mentally unambitious. From reading to shopping, Gaffigan is really great at capturing stupidity.
“You ever read a book that changed your life? Me neither.”– Jim Gaffigan
Once I finally calibrated my owl like survival skills in the dark, I began to feel curious enough to direct my eyes toward the great white light. To depict a sample bit, the Iowa State Daily recounts a moment in Jim’s stand-up routine. Gaffigan spoke similar words in his St. Louis act at the Black Hole on 10/20/06.

“There is something to be said with presentation. I might look at a Hot Pocket commercial and be like, “How stupid do they think we are?” They’re just going to sit there and go, (sings) “Hot Pocket” and we’re going to be like, “Oh, that’s a good commercial, let’s go and eat that crap.” Obviously, it’s just a calzone or a Jamaican meat product, but they’ve just called it something else and used the worst description for the product. I feel like everything pisses me off, but I guess I’ve got it kind of good. I’m pissed off that Angelina Jolie keeps calling me. I was just at Sundance and this business is all about getting too much respect or none. I was there for a film and it was great, they give you free shit and everything, but I would say, like, three times a day people thought I was Philip Seymour Hoffman. Does that piss me off? Not really. You’ll look at a script, and I’m a character actor, and it’ll be like, “The guy who looks slightly retarded enters the room,” and that’s my character. Those things can piss you off or you can go, “Yeah, you know what, I am a doughy white guy.” I think that’s what sarcasm is for, deflecting some of that annoyance.”
– Iowa State Daily, 1/26/06

For about the initial first ten minutes, Jim stays stationary in his position on stage. During his introduction and as he begins to move into the steak of his act, Jim would occasionally switch into a female character. This falsetto voiced character comments as if she were an audience member.

“Oh, that joke wasn’t funny,” he’ll whisper into the microphone. This quasi audience voice did become a crutch for Jim to catch a breath all night. Whenever seemingly running into a topical dead end, Gaffigan changes gears by using his internal commentary to segue way into different material. One time he seamlessly stopped talking about the perils of a microwave into a commentary about Jesus and religion.
After musing about Jesus’ footwear during certain miracles performed over water, he then effortlessly criticized his own material “as being too dependent on the audience’s familiarity with Jesus.” Jim talks again to the Iowa State Daily about his religious humor.

“People just hear you mention the word Jesus and they just kind of assume you’re making fun of Jesus or that you’re trying to preach or something like that. I suppose it could be offensive to someone, but my wife is really, really Catholic. And she would not let me get away with anything that would jeopardize her getting into heaven.” — Iowa State Daily, 1/26/06

Maybe in Jim’s mind, the best humor he has to serve as prime is a result of his fluid sense of comic timing.

“Steak is the tuxedo of meat…and baloney is the retarded cousin.”
– Jim Gaffigan, Omega 3 star

There were generations of his family that had never gone to college. His father was the first one to go to college and offer the family a middle class lifestyle.

“It wasn’t one of those things where we were advised to throw it all away to go into show business. It wasn’t discouraged but was just seen as impractical.” — Gaffigan

So Gaffigan took the practical route and earned a degree in finance. Then reality set in while he worked as a financial consultant for a couple of years.

“When I studied finance in school, I kept thinking ‘Once I’m paid for this, I’ll enjoy it.’ I didn’t. I thought I was going to hang myself,” he said. “I eventually got a job in advertising in New York and became a copywriter. Along the way, I had gotten into improv just because I wanted to do it. Then somebody dared me to do stand-up.”

Never lacking the sense of humor, Gaffigan’s stand up reflects his responsible character. Jim’s jokes are all carefully selected for universal appeal, making his act a safe 70 minutes; non-intrusive humor.

“I was always the guy who would do six or seven spots a night on a weekend. I saw every audience as an opportunity to try new material and try to hone the universality of a joke.”

As Jim’s routine was winding down the path to tidy finishes; he began to lose a little intrigue due to his reliance on his falsetto character. At this point, being as dark as the hall was, I conjectured he might have even stepped out for a drink and had been relieved by an actual audience member. Not to be tricked, I confirmed my conjecture untrue with “it” sitting next to me. We both agreed, Jim’s character was still just a Gaffigan character.

The faceless laughters from the crowd were eerily exclusively coming from the seats on the floor, and not from the balcony. In fact, I’m not sure whether the silence up top was due to Jim’s inadequacy at all. Coupled with the lack of light, the balcony might have been closed due to the overwhelming danger of possible sleepwalking accidents.

In my research of Jim, I found a story about his most frightening stage appearance.

“I try to block them out. I used to do a show in Harlem called New Jack Comedy, because I wanted stage time. I had a lot of stage fright when I started, and I wanted to get it pounded out of me. They literally introduced me as, “Here’s a white guy!” Boo. “This guy’s really white!” Double boo. They didn’t want to hear jokes about cake.” — Time Out NY, 6/26/06

In the end, I had seen all of Gaffigan’s jokes before on Comedy Central. In that sense, he seemed very mechanical and less unique, almost as if he were the host of his own comic infomercial. And like most infomercials, his product is useful, just not quite ready for prime time air play.

Reviewing work by Mark Twain is like drinking water. Why? Let Mr. Twain explain. The legendary satirist briefs us;

“My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.”
- Notebook of Mark Twain, 1885

Coincidently, Mr. Twain’s writings are not intended for any specific individual, nor does he endorse individual judgments of literature as meaningful enough for print.

“..I could not consent to deliver judgment upon any one’s manuscript, because an individual’s verdict [is] worthless…The great public [is] the only tribunal competent to sit in judgment upon a literary effort.
” – from the Twain Letter, “Concerning the Carnival of Crime in Connecticut”

And the public adored Mark Twain; each diverse in Twain content exposure yet also each uniform in belief of Twain’s Folk Hero stature. As a member of this phenomena (I had previously only read Twain Fiction: Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer) this review started quite dehydrated.

Being interested in early American political commentary, I found many transcendental ironies inside the words of Mark Twain’s broad critique of early American offenses against humanity; ”To the Person Sitting in Darkness”(as it was printed in the January 1901 edition of the NY Times).

Mr. Twain’s words also seem very poignant in regards to recent US Military History. Specifically, Twain’s “two Americas” remind me of the ironies present in current American conflict.

“The Person Sitting in Darkness is almost sure to say:’There is something curious about this – curious and unaccountable. There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive’s new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land.” — From Twain Letter, “To the Person Sitting in Darkness”

Not all reviews found Twain’s letter as timelessly brilliant, historically, peers downplayed Twain’s arguments and passion as an attempt to be “smart”.

“Mr. Mark Twain entitles his article, “To a Person Sitting in Darkness.” It is impossible to exclude the suspicion that Mr. Twain was indifferent to the truth or falsity of his recital. To a person of his literary habit and temperament that aspect of the matter might not seem to be important. A man who makes it his vocation to be funny is not called upon late in life to develop a historical conscience. If the article was deemed “smart,” that was doubtless quite enough to satisfy Mr. Mark Twain.” — NY Times, 2/9/01

Even after the condescending criticism by the Times, a reader of the same historical population admonished the dismissive review, and signed his retort as “A Christian Patriot”.

“A reader of The Times who signs himself “A Christian Patriot” says in a letter which we printed yesterday that our note of warning against the total untrustworthiness of Mr. Mark Twain’s burlesque history of the Philippine transaction has prompted him to read Mr. Twain’s article, and he likes it. “It speaks truth,” he tells us, “and dispels the sophisms of Chamberlain, McKinley, and the rest. It gave me great pleasure and satisfaction,” says he of Twain’s article, “to find expressed in such a clear, cogent, and interesting manner the exact views which I and many other loyal American citizens have entertained from the beginning.” — NY Times, 2/9/01

Enjoying a printer’s perk of content timing, the Times again discredits Twain’s commentary by denying its factual accuracy.

“We remark with surprise and grief that Mr. Christian Patriot has disobeyed our injunction “to read with care the original authorities, the official sources, from which he [Mr. Twain] would have it appear that he drew the information so amusingly perverted in his article.” That was the cure we recommended for those who have been taken in by Mr. Twain. We assumed that every Christian Patriot who was really seeking the truth would let neither business nor pleasure stop him from applying this test of the truthfulness of Twain. How dare any Christian Patriot declare that Twain “speaks truth” when by so simple a procedure as consulting the sources of the truth he would have been apprised of the indisputable fact that Twain speaks falsehood?” — NY Times, 2/9/01

Not Falsehood, or propaganda; documented history tells a much more congruent story to that of Twain’s letter. Mark Twain’s most effective commentary unveils itself as part of a satirical explanation from America to the mistreated Indigenous people abroad. As masterfully as liquid is fluent, Twain amuses us with his most provocative perspective: The “Honest Imperialist” doing a bit of damage control.

“Having now laid all the historical facts before the Person Sitting in Darkness, we should bring him to again, and explain them to him. We should say to him:’They look doubtful, but in reality they are not. There have been lies; yes, but they were for a good cause. We have been treacherous; but that was only in order that real good might come out of apparent evil. True, we have crushed a deceived and confiding people; we have turned against the weak and the friendless who trusted us; we have stamped out a just and intelligent and well-ordered republic; we have stabbed an ally in the back and slapped the face of a guest; we have bought a Shadow from an enemy that hadn’t it to sell; we have robbed a trusting friend of his land and his liberty; we have invited our clean young men to shoulder a discredited musket and do bandit’s work under a flag which bandits have been accustomed to fear, not to follow; we have debauched America’s honor and blackened her face before the world; but each detail was for the best. We know this. — From Twain Letter, “To the Person Sitting in Darkness”

Nothing comes close to Twain’s building sense of global urgency for peace and mutual respect in modern dissent satire or commentary.

The Head of every State and Sovereignty in Christendom and ninety percent of every legislative body in Christendom, including our Congress and our fifty State Legislatures, are members not only of the church, but also of the Blessings-of-Civilization Trust. This world-girdling accumulation of trained morals, high principles, and justice, cannot do an upright thing, an unfair thing, an ungenerous thing, an unclean thing. It knows what it is about. Give yourself no uneasiness; it is all right. Now, then, that will convince the Person.”
– From Twain Letter, “To the Person Sitting in Darkness”

This opinion in 1901, by Mark Twain, demands a moral obligation for American tolerance abroad. He warns these early imperialists: Don’t take for granted the effects of American manipulation and conflict abroad in the name of American Blessings & Civilization!

I am intrigued by the associaton that exists between entrepreneurship and creativity, and the documented supposed lack of creativity existing in today’s more larger corporations.

In a 1995 article published as part of a larger collection entitled Creative Action in Organizations:Ivory tower visions and real world voices, Harry Nystrom outlines a business world devoid of corporate creativity.

Nystrom writes, “(the) intellectual heritage of the Western world has helped to create efficient institutions and companies, but has tended to make us forget a fundamental issue that requires creativity: the purpose for which these organizations are designed and how to change them for the better. (66)”

In the mid 1990′s, Nystrom saw a corporate culture rigid, bureaucratic, mechanistic, and devoid of any adaptive behavior. Instead of a business world full of promise and potential, Nystrom paints a big business world in danger of a big bang extinction. While the dinosaurs enjoyed the bureaucratic cover of large corporate umbrellas, he found innovation and creativity to be manifesting as new maverick entrepreneurs spanning many industries and services.

These new innovaters are described by Nystrom as “a visionary activist who excells in the creation of opportunities and the active handling of risks and uncertainities. He or she initially increases business risks by searching for new opportunities and experimenting to see if they are worthwhile. Simultaneously, and later on, entrepreneurs are strongly engaged in reducing risk, by actively changing prevailing conditions.(68)”

This dichotomy between the machine of control and size of skyscraper inc. with the eagle like negotiatons of risky yet innovative dealings of Mr. Maverick provide such a stark depiction of the every day realities of business as painted by Mr. Nystrom. It almost seems that his beliefs themselves are a reactionary creation to a day of stress at his beareaucratic corporate cubicle. He might have had to take his lunch at his desk to write this endorsement of entrepreneurism.

It is interesting the absolute nature in Mr. Nystrom’s depictions. Further analysis forthcoming, specifically looking for the converse of his arguement. I.E., A creative CEO vrs. a rigid entrepreneur and their contrasting effects.

As I reluctantly enter the one screen, couch laden, ballroom of Moolah Theatre’s cinematic theatre, I could only think of one thing before I viewed the low budget, comedy docudaredevil film Jackass 2.

Who is the Jackass? Is it me, having spent eight on a ticket and another five for an austentaciously overpriced bottle of water? Or is it in fact, the title characters who star in this generational dufus show? Being perplexed, I asked a friend who was also pondering this predicament. Should we be ashamed?

“It is never our fault if the movie flops, but is our fault for watching a movie that is a flop. Because while everybody else can claim the highground that they knew it would be bad, we actually paid to know what bad looks like.”

After hearing that, I focused my eyes on the screen, and felt asured that I was going to leave a bigger donkey than when I arrived. And sure enough, as the opening score began, I also began to frame this movie alternatively than what I originally intended to discover.

My past pre-inventive conscience included a knowledge of what I knew to be the Jackass trademark and an idea of what to expect substantively from the movie’s trailers being advertized on the television. I began to explore my expectations more theoretically combined with a curiousity concerning laughter and its inability to discriminate between intellectual and reactionary material. Thus, I now was interested in the question: Is Creativite Expression a means to an end only or can a representation be considered exclusively creative by its nature of being a finished manifestation of an earlier creative insight? Basically, what or who decides intrinsic creative value?

To elaborate, is it a waste of time to view representations of creativity that others deem to be “bad” or “unsuccessful”? Can creativity be percieved different by a single observer or only by multiple sources? Does creativity require innovation or intelligence to be deemed worthy of review and what rubric exists universally?

With my questions cooking internally, I began to try to validate this parcel of punk pop culture as a creative achievment. Before I discuss my own impressions on the previously framed questions, I’ll give a suitable summary of the medium, story highlights, and other important details concerning the film.

The film is not a fictional manifestation of any kind of story, or plot. Instead, the movie is organized into brief sketches and stunts done by a group of daredevil twenty-something miscreants. They purposely atttempt and execute behaviors that intentionally are dangerous, crude, and purposely offensive.

The leader of this documentary team is Johnny Knoxville, a B list actor and hollywood personality. Along side of Mr. Knoxville, the characters include a cast of other celebrity guests, professional X-gamers, and a primary core of former “Jackass” personalities. Some of the stars include a severely overweight stunt man, a skateboarding dwarf, and a tatoo obsessive shock jock. Steve-O, Party Boy, Wee Man, Preston, Aaron, Bam, and Knoxville take turns trying to disgust and amaze by filming their juvenile expressions of good fun; one creative sick joke after the other. I say creative due to the lengths and extremity that each sketch provides in danger, and the unbelievable.

When it comes to a movie like this, you can’t expect Shakespeare. Heck, you can’t even expect root beer. You should know exactly what you’re going to get when you go see this or anything “Jackass” related. The target audience will love the gross out moments – which have been stepped up considerably since the first film.

Each moronic stuntman finds his own niche. Knoxville continues to take the higher profile scenes, which often involve him flying through the air, being attacked by animals or having things hurled at his groin. Bam Margera does the mid-list stunts like riding a skateboard directly down a ramp into a camera equipped glass wall and getting marked by a cow brand on his buttocks. Miraculously, he still finds the time to torment and abuse his parents by destroying thier house and harassing them while they are unsuspectingly asleep.

And Steve-O mops up the most disgusting rest. He does things the others refuse, including piercing his cheek with a fishhook and diving into the Gulf of Mexico as live shark bait, attaching a leech to his eyeball and putting on a helmet that’s attached to a human rear so he can breathe undiluted human flatulation.

The sketches that I have just described are not even the worst of the film’s inappropriate material, mostly containing examples of disgusting personal hygiene, beastiality, and explicit uses of bodily fluid. These sketches lack creativity and couth, but deliver in shock and awe value.

What’s bizarre about the continued success of the “Jackass” projects is the fact that none of these guys are seriously hurt. They do come close, though. In the first film, Johnny Knoxville almost broke his neck in a haphazard golf cart race. In the new film, he is almost run through by a misfired rocket, and Steve-O’s leg is only inches away from becoming the lunch for a hungry mako shark. It is unbelievable the amount of bodily harm these actors will endure to ensure thier scenes are a success.

Here are a few reviews from the many reputable sources that have reviewed the gang’s creative expressions.

As told by the Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota.

“Since the first Cro-Magnon hit his pal on the head with a rock and chuckled, physical pain and slapstick humor have been inseparable. Johnny Knoxville and his masochistic pals advance that classic formula with such high-tech stunts as the Taser Toss, the Rocket Powered Shopping Cart Ride, the Backdoor Beer Bong and the Mini Electric Chair, as well as various gross-outs involving stallions and snakes that will fuel your nightmares for months.

There’s a certain fascination to watching the crew subject themselves to pathological levels of suffering for our amusement, pushing the furthest boundaries of vicarious shock. It’s “The Three Stooges meet the Marquis de Sade,” with the added sick excitement of knowing you could witness a Steve Irwin stunt catastrophe at any moment. Whether you laugh, shriek or fight the urge to puke reveals as much about you as years of psychotherapy.”

And reveled for thier endless well of dangerous ideas by the Philidelphia region’s get out web journal, www.philly.com.

“You have to hand it to those Jackass guys – Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O and the rest – they can absorb insane amounts of punishment.

The film carries the standard warning that viewers should not attempt any of the stunts they are about to see. Maybe it’s time to do away with the advisory and let natural selection take over. After all, we really need to get anyone who is tempted to emulate Jackass Two out of the gene pool.”

Beyond the national press and attention this film is recieving, it has also grossed over 51 million dollars in two weeks, opening with a week of 29 million in revenue. An unbelievable financial success for a film that costed 10 million to finish, and expected to continue to gross close to a quarter of a billion dollars. These statistics indicate a movie that could end up being more than a 250% return on investment, a financier’s dream investment.

However loved by its young, raunchy fans, the movie is also hated by many like this “Movie Mom” collumn illustrates as seen on Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies.

“Anyone unfamiliar with the Jackass collection (a prior feature-length “movie” — really a collection of skits — and a series on MTV) will definitely not want to go into the boys’ second film, “Jackass: Number Two” (get it?), without first consulting these past works to ensure they’re mentally prepared. Being physically prepared wouldn’t be a bad idea either; if you absolutely must go, bring that little plastic trashcan from your office, maybe grab a blindfold, and please, for your own sake and that of everyone in the theatre, go on an empty stomach.
Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O and others from the Jackass crew return, this time as repeat offenders, offering the same brand of “humor” that has been grossing out anyone who cares to watch since the TV series started in 2000. They abuse their bodies in ways so cruel they would be imprisoned if they committed the same acts against anyone but themselves, and even the scenes of nakedness (of which there are many) are painful, if only because one can’t help but wince at all the red, purple, yellow and black bruises their bodies have sustained as side-effects (or are they the primary goal?) of the stunts.

Parents should know that this is a documentary-style movie about a real-life series of disgusting and extremely dangerous behavior, including obtaining and drinking animal ejaculate (weirdly, the one item in the film x-ed out to ensure an R rating), being bitten on the genitals and the arm by snakes, putting a fishhook through a lip and being used as human shark bait, and being gored by a bull. There is explicit nudity, explicit excretory humor (human and animal), and graphic violence. Characters use strong language.”

This movie is a controversial PR success; a no apoligies disgusting exemption to any serious national criticism, or boycott. Due to the crew’s unyielding consistency to being the most politically incorrect sketch comedy troupe, JackAss 2 is not widely unaccepted as a creative expression of imagination. As shown above by the national review, even pundits are referring to the film’s unbelievable antics as creative, abstract depictions of popular culture and its fringe human conditions.

So, I pose the questions I pondered earlier, is this Creative? What positive “Big C” impacts does this movie accomplish?

After the movie had finished, I felt as if I had just witnessed something I wasn’t supposed to see. Yet, as I looked around the audience, people cheered and laughed as hearty as I have ever seen for any movie. The crowd even deemed the sketches worthy of a raucous standing ovation! This audience was not as low a common denominator as the jokes intended to entertain. Instead, there were adult couples, multiple college students, and even movie groups that were serious film buffs. For the most part, the audience appeared to be educated, stable, inquisitive individuals. They all laughed, gagged, awed, and cheered on these sketches with no remorse for its intentional stupidity.

I find it interesting to look at this expression as it relates to “Creativity & Motivation”. Sternberg summarizes the pyschodynamic motivation of “creative behavior as a way of reducing tension created by other, unacceptable desires (HC 297).”

By this definition, the movie poses a very interesting case. In one fashion, the movie is counter-intuitive to creativity due to the sketches purpose being to increase tension and cause unacceptable desires to those personally involved. Yet, for the viewing audience it is the converse, the movie depicts social fears and nightmarish situations as being anything but tense, making light of these unacceptable desires as petty settings for thier congenial horseplay.

With different perception and participation details, come different entirely different motivations. Which is true? So in essence, by this analysis, the film is a creative film when viewed by others but not initially defined as a creative insight with psychodynamic motivations.

Different than pychodynamic parameters, Sternberg provides a more useful motivation testing technique for Creativity. He later explains “the predominant line of theoretical and empirical work has arisen from the belief that creativity is motivated by the enjoyment and satisfaction that a person derives from engaging in the creative activity(HC 298).”

By these standards a creative expression is only legitimized by the correlation of an architect’s neccessary enjoyment. A contrast to a cognitive approach that values the four stages of the creative process equally in importance. By analysis, the film’s elaboration stage would only be creative in motivation, if the director enjoyed spending countless hours cutting, and splicing seconds of rough film.

Whereas, cognitively, the creative process regardless of enjoyment requires verification to be fully manifest. Jackass 2, cognitively, seems very creative due to its obvious use of the four stages; preparation, incubation, insight, verification:elaboration & evaluation. The general process of movie making dictates a cognitive creation.

I explan this assertion by assessing the Jackass 2 project in terms of the seperate stages present as a whole while also viewing that each skit in the movie itself presented an idea that passed through the aforementioned stages cyclicaly and seamlessly.

As an example, a skit that finished as a human bungy stunt started as a diagram visually created by Bam on a sheet of paper. After conceptualizing the idea as an image, the stunt man then begin to incubate the idea personally by discussing on camera which characters would be best to make the idea a success. He then also associated a human bungy trick as a correlation to modern bungy jumping through an innovative use of human weight and height distribution. In addition to the weight correlation, Bam also designed a correlative timing process by including a delayed timing to the diving time of the stunt men. Not fully convinced with his idea, he drew multiple diagrams to test various possibilities. Finally deciding to test his idea, he concentrated on finding the missing ingredient to his stunt and begin to recall his preparation. Through this process, he came to the “eureka” moment, that his stunt was best done with extreme differences in the first and second divers. Finally,inspiring Bam to decide to elaborate his design even further to include the detail that the first diver would be a midget weighing 55 pounds followed by the second diver, a 350 pound stuntman. To induce the rip cord effect, he directed the timing of the second dive at the same time that the first diver was equidistant from the bridge and water. Using math, physics, and creative association, Bam was able to create a human bungy that was safe for both divers to reach water. Even after the filmed sketch, he wondered if the stunt could be better with a slightly smaller second diver. Although this is only one sketch, it gave creative legitimacy to the core of Jackass 2′s substance being very cognitive in creation.

It is also intriguing to me that theory in creativity can be argued so incredibly for many different points of opinion. For Example, I defined the above example as creative in evaluation because the creator was immediately trying to improve his manifested design. It appears to me that it could also be argued that the evaluation stage should question more than design, but issues of more social implications like practical worth and use.

In addition to the above reactions in relation to class material, I wanted to end by giving my impressions to the original framing questions.

“Is Creativite Expression a means to an end only or can a representation be considered exclusively creative by its nature of being a finished manifestation of an earlier creative insight? Basically, what or who decides intrinsic creative value?”

I would contend that any creative expression has both a supply side and demand side creative perception and existence. For Jackass 2, the sketches themselves provide the imagination and cognitive process necessary to be deemed a creative enterprise. In addition to the intrinsic creative expression, the movie also provides a wonderful example of “production theory” in practice illustrating a product diverse with ideas that have been formulated by 6 years of filming similar dangerous feats, and by the movie’s ability to be show each sketch as a successful incubation of a Jackass type stunt similar to other creations yet uniquely different. In the end, creative value is socially judged on face value; it can’t be a reproduction. Personally, I think the value takes on deeper judgement, not so much a review of general creative motivation, but with more depth and analysis as the creation pertains to intelligence, and imagination.

“Is it a waste of time to view representations of creativity that others deem to be “bad” or “unsuccessful”? Can creativity be percieved different by a single observer or only by multiple sources? Does creativity require innovation or intelligence to be deemed worthy of review and what rubric exists universally?”

Time spent viewing another human’s creative process can never be an absolute “waste of time”. Even though, I personally didn’t find Jackass 2 to be incredibly enlightening or personally preferable, I do find thier technique of discussing social abnormalities as very innovative. It is successfully creative the way this movie can film such odd and disturbing humor in such a way that it is creatively made mainstream and packaged as a “must-see personal experiment” for anyone. Instead of viewing Jackass 2 as a ticket to juvenile “stupid-town”, people flock to test thier ability to hold thier stomach or to see if they really are succeptible to being entertained by this humor.

It is amazing, almost subliminal in creation the way this movie masks a very serious contempt for modern morality by never once mentioning this in any manner whatsoever. The same viewers who came to be appalled by the crew’s lack of respect for social norms and moral conduct, end up viewing the movie as an experiment of their own ability to be entertained by the same situations they publically would denounce. In the end, because the movie provides a piece of previously undiscussed humor for everybody, no one leaves without the guilt of having at least a couple of hearty laughs. Thus, the most creative element of this immature enterprise is the hidden ability of the film to clandestinely manipulate the most pretentious into unknowingly stop judging a few books by their cover.