"a way to track my activity related to creativity and things that i've found helpful to generate new ideas. waste of time? possibly. talked with students about doing a lot of these things to get them out of the music building and experience life. so, maybe this is a way to track myself and to provide an example to some of my students."
Photos Went to Kita-Sakado this morning to photograph the rice fields. I always enjoy May-June in Japan, not only because of the weather but, also enjoy rides in the countryside and seeing the flooded rice fields.
Only slept about 3 hours last night before leaving the house at 5:30am this morning. When I got home from Saitama this afternoon, I spent a couple of hours uploading my RAW files and practicing trumpet. Then I slept about 6-7 hours. Didn't do much today. Watched an old Gene Hackman movie, The Domino Principle, when I woke-up this evening.
Watercolor Woke-up this morning and came in and sat down and did a few minutes of watercoloring. It's funny how the mind works. That little voice in our mind that is constantly talking. Almost everything inside of me said, "Don't put your silly-looking, childish watercolors up for the world to see." But, another part of me says, "Who cares?" And really who cares? It's not about that for me. It's about creating. That's all. Is it good? I don't know..don't care to know. When I play a solo on the horn, I have the same feeling. Yeah..sure..there is a part of me that wants everyone to like it but, over time that voice has gotten smaller and smaller. And as that's happened, I've felt more and more free to create/improvise. Amazing how fear paralyzes us and stops us from creating. Trip Took a train ride out into the countryside today. Went to Higashi Moro in Saitama. About 20 minutes (walk) from the station is a great pine forest area with trails and an old Japanese temple. Really a special area for energy. I love doing chikung in a pine forest. Anyway, it was a nice trip. Took some photos. No iPod. No phone calls. No email. Took the train back home but, stopped in Asaka (Saitama) and sat at an outdoor cafe and enjoyed the evening breeze and read E. De Bono's "Lateral Thinking."
Lateral Thinking Maybe we can think of lateral thinking as thinking "outside the box." Seems like most of us are taught in our "left-brain" (logical, practical)society schooling to think "vertically." Lateral thinking is more of a horizontal approach to thinking, problem solving and creativity.
Exercise Did a lot of walking today. Decided when I got home to do some yoga, chikung and weights.
Documentary Watched 2 documentaries today on "beat generation", avant-garde writer William Burroughs.
Art/Photography Lenswork Extended - June Issue Tonight I've been checking out photographer Ian Foster. He lives in a small village near Norwich, England. I was looking at his folio called Waterline I. It's a collection of abstracts based off of boats of all kinds in dry-dock that exhibits their battles with the sea. I found out that his influences are Rothko, Barnett Newman, Josef Albers, Clifford Still, Sean Scully and Howard Hodgkin. Except for Rothko (one of my favorites), all the others were new to me. So, I've been searching around on the net to look at some of their work. Amazing how checking out one photographer today has led me to 5 new artists that I didn't know about.
Movie Started watching one of my favorite movies, "The Scent of Green Papaya." Went to Tsutaya and rented dvd's of movie director, Tran Anh Hung's two films, "The Scent of Green Papaya" and "The Vertical Ray of the Sun." I saw "Green Papaya" at an Asian film festival a few years ago and was knocked out by the style and timing and rhythm of this movie. I love how he takes so much time to let a scene develop. Seems like a lot of directors don't have the courage to do that. Maybe afraid their audience won't have the patience for it. Also, loved the soundtrack by Ton-That Tiet. The way he shifted back and forth between an Asian vibe to a kind of 20th century western classical music vibe was amazing.
