Not much has happened this week with the book except I’m selling copies, and I’m considering this second author portrait over the orange sweater shot I posted earlier. It’s more casual but maybe a little more interesting. What do you think?
My friend Rita, in Arkansas, recommended a life altering read for me last week: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. The writing is inspired and the book is a must for any person who has tried to create something new, whether it be a novel, a painting, a business, or an exercise program, anything where the voice of resistance has had an opportunity to stall the endeavor out. The war is between life-affirming creative energy (inspiration) and withering forces of inertia. This book pulled my covers. It helped me recognize where I have been justifying the fact that I’m not getting to work on another creative writing project, and what I need to do about it: write! And that’s write because I’m a writer, period. What I write, and where it goes is none of my concern. All I need to do is recognize that I get enough out of the writing process to sustain me, and doing it enhances my life. It’s life-affirming for me to honor the gift of words that come to me. It’s the force of inertia that tells me to do it some other day. The battle is constant, so says Pressfield, but the creative side gets stronger with every victory, with every action I take to honour the creative.
Honouring creativity is one thing, and feeding it is another. Yesterday I had a brilliant feed-my-creativity day. It was the best! Everything about it was wonderful, starting with the glorious spring sunshine. I drove an hour down to Berkeley, CA, across the sparkling San Francisco Bay, to a great destination spot, Fourth Street. I went in search of the world’s best music store, Down Home Music. Turns out, the fashionable Fourth Street location didn’t pay off for them, and they had moved back to their original location in El Cerrito. No worries, EC was on my route back home.
While on Forth Street though, I had lunch at the most, no exaggeration, fabulous Indian Chatt café and grocery, Vic’s. It has got to be one of the hippest places on earth — delicious, lively, international, cheep.
After lunch I headed to El Cerrito. EC has a lot of meaning for me since I lived there for a number of years when I was a kid. It’s gotten much cooler over these last thirty-plus years. Well, part of the deal may be that I wasn’t cool enough back then to patronize Down Home Music, even though they were there. Down Home Music is also the home of the Arhoolie record label. Check out their link on my sidebar. Walking in the store made my heart leap with joy, OMG an independent music store! The place is packed with, get this, un-staged merchandise. Racks are categorized, but they’re not arranged with slick posters and signage. The posters, album jackets, and music memorabilia are honest-to-god originals. The store specializes in “historical Blues, Jazz, Gospel, Soul, Cajun, Zydeco, Country, Old-Timey, Bluegrass, Folk, Mexican and Tex-Mex, Cuban, Balkan, British, European, African, Caribbean, and other musical varieties from around the world.”
I was so in love, I bough sixteen CD’s. One I would have bought even if it didn’t also include sensational music. This John Santos Quintet: Perspectiva Fragmentada has two extraordinary quotes that alone made it worth the sale price:
1) “The artist must choose between freedom and slavery.” – Paul Robeson
2) And my favorite, “It is no sign of good health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” – J. Krishnamurti
Hallelujah, no joke, what a gem of a store; it was a great day!
I’ll post again next Friday – have a great week.
Without a doubt, good could be had by putting The War of Art in young people’s hands and in the hands of those working with them. In the context of the author’s premise, where growth and inertia are diametrically opposed and in a death fight, kids are constantly under siege. Every day a young person tries to create a life that is fresh and new; they are trying to grow, to learn, to blossom. That innate life-force is anathema to the death wish of inertia. Resistance to growth is a killer instinct that destroys many a young person because they don’t understand what they’re up against. Pressfield makes a convincing case that what we think of as our own free will might actually be the opposite. It’s a force hell bent on destroying our innate good will, that is our will to thrive. Resistance gets us to take drugs and alcohol, to drive recklessly, to run with thugs, to screw ourselves into oblivion, to work ourselves into a fevered pitch over non-sense, to get injured repeatedly, or anything else that gets our eye of the ball. Resistance is a bully that is only happy when we’re shutting down. Young people I know are capable of a good fight; the trick is getting them to see and join the winning side.
Forgot to tell you – Mom read your book and we got to wondering about these characters and what they would do next. Funny that Mom did not cry while reading it like I did, and her husband died a few years ago, but not suddenly. In fact, it was the opposite of that – from altzeimers. Anyway, she liked it.
Rita
Yes! This is a super great artist shot. Go with this one! And about The War of Art – I wonder how it would work in the schools, or prisons (same thing) or for parents of teenagers, and the kids, themselves. Resistance is everywhere! And so often in disguise.
Rita