From the room in which Remedial Chaos Theory was broken by Chris McKenna and writers. I’m sorry, that’s not accurate. The room in which Chris McKenna and writers were broken by Remedial Chaos Theory. Thank you so much for your patience and sacrifices, guys.
Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don’t cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don’t think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you.
—Hemingway’s letter of advice to F. Scott Fitzgerald, a fine addition to other notable advice on writing. (via explore-blog)
(Source: , via explore-blog)
You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
— Franz Kafka
Creativity is Subtraction – truth from Austin Kleon, part of his brilliant Newspaper Blackout project.
The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
—Wisdom from Hugh McLeod and other great thinkers on how to find your purpose and do what you love. (via explore-blog)
(Source: , via explore-blog)
Woman in Comedy: A really scary thing happened to me last night at a comedy show.
Part of me thinks it’s too soon to be writing about this because I don’t think I’ve completely processed how I feel, but I also think maybe this has happened to other women and I should talk about it in as raw a way as possible. I’m still really embarrassed and ashamed and garbled up inside, but maybe this can start a helpful discussion in terms of women and comedy.
Last night, I was on a stand up show in the East Village. The show started out with a small crowd and the host did an amazing job interacting with them and riling them up. By the time I got on stage, there were about 20 or so more people in the audience and the place had really filled up. The show was still kind of loose because of the back and forth between the host and the audience, so when I got on stage, I riffed a bit about the stuff that had happened before and then talked to one guy on the side of the audience who the host had dubbed “Banana Republic.” All joke-y. All in good fun.
Then, I start my actual set and do my first two jokes, which go pretty okay. I start another joke that is vaguely sexual - not crude, not crass - mainly silly and that goes well too. The next joke I do is about my boyfriend.
At a comedy show, when you’re on stage, usually you can’t see the audience because of the bright lights. So I’m looking into pitch darkness. As I start the joke, someone yells, “Does your boyfriend know?” referring to the sexuality joke I’d just told. I stop, laugh and say that he does because I think it’s just more of the loose environment that’s been going on at this show. I attribute it to an audience member just having fun.
I start to tell the joke about my boyfriend again, and at the midway point, the same voice yells something else derogatory about my boyfriend, homophobic and misogynistic towards me. I stop, confused. I can’t see who is talking to me so I make a HUGE mistake and say, “Sir, if you’re gonna talk to me, you need to come to the front because I can’t see you.” I think calling him out like this will shut him up.
You go around sniffing out all the symptomatic actions in your vicinity, thus reducing everyone to the level of sons and daughters who blushingly admit the existence of their faults. Meanwhile you remain on top as the father, sitting pretty. For sheer obsequiousness nobody dares to pluck the prophet by the beard and inquire for once what you would say to a patient with a tendency to analyze the analyst instead of himself. You would certainly ask him: ‘Who’s got the neurosis?’… I am namely not in the least neurotic — touch wood! I have namely lege artis et tout humblement let myself be analyzed, which has been very good for me. You know, of course, how far a patient gets with self-analysis: not out of his neurosis — just like you
—Carl Jung’s scathing letter to Sigmund Freud, 1912, uncovered in The Freud Files – one of history’s most acrimonious intellectual assaults. (via explore-blog)
(Source: , via explore-blog)
I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.
—Mother Theresa (via hungrygh0sts)
(via martyrnotsaint)
Blue Crow, 1512, Albrecht Dürer
(Source: compendium-of-beasts, via cavetocanvas)
