SOME FOLKS WHO INSPIRE US
"Everyone is a born a genius but the process of living de-geniuses them." — Buckminster Fuller
"I think that my whole generation’s mission is to kill the cliché’." — Beck
"Basically, art is just a way to think. It’s like standing in the wild and letting it pull you in whatever direction it wants to go." — Kiki Smith
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those that matter don’t mind." — Dr. Seuss
"It was when I found out that I could make mistakes that I knew I was on to something." — Ornette Coleman
"A facility that fosters creativity is a place that allows people to discover, develop, and exploit their own natural intelligences. It’s a place where there are no stupid questions, and it is not a place where there is only one right answer. It’s a place that values irreverence, the lively, the dynamic, the surprising, the playful. And it values, above all, curiosity and the ability to make connections, to make those cognitive leaps." — Peter Richards
From an old interview with Tom Waits:
Q: Can you tell me an odd thing that happened in an odd place? Any thoughts?
A: A Japanese freighter had been torpedoed during WWII and it’s at the bottom of Tokyo Harbor with a large hole in her hull. A team of engineers was called together to solve the problem of raising the wounded vessel to the surface. One of the engineers tackling this puzzle said he remembered seeing a Donald Duck cartoon when he was a boy where there was a boat at the bottom of the ocean with a hole in its hull, and they injected it with ping-pong balls and it floated up. The skeptical group laughed but one of the experts was willing to give it a try. Of course, where in the world would you find twenty million ping-pong balls but in Tokyo? It turned out to be the perfect solution. The balls were injected into the hull and it floated to the surface, the engineer was elated. Moral solutions to problems are always found at an entirely different level; also, believe in yourself in the face of impossible odds.
Q: Most interesting recording you own?
A: It’s a mysteriously beautiful recording from, I am told, Robbie Robertson’s label. It’s of crickets. That’s right, crickets, the first time I heard it… I swore I was listening to the Vienna Boys Choir, or the Mormon Tabernacle choir. It has a four-part harmony it is a swaying choral panorama. Then a voice comes in on the tape and says, “What you are listening to is the sound of crickets. The only thing that has been manipulated is that they slowed down the tape.” No effects have been added of any kind except that they changed the speed of the tape. The sound is so haunting. I played it for Charlie Musselwhite and he looked at me as if I pulled a Leprechaun out of my pocket.
Q: What remarkable things have you found in unexpected places?
1. Real beauty: oil stains left by cars in a parking lot.
2. Shoe shine stands that looked like thrones in Brazil made of scrap wood.
3. False teeth in pawnshop windows- Reno, NV.
4. Great acoustics: in jail.
5. Best food: Airport in Tulsa Oklahoma.
6. Most gift shops: Fatima, Portugal.
7. Most unlikely location for a Chicano crowd: A Morrissey concert.
8. Most poverty: Washington D.C.
9. A homeless man with a beautiful operatic voice singing the word “Bacteria” in an empty dumpster in Chinatown.
10. A Chinese man with a Texan accent in Scotland.
11. Best nights sleep: in a dry riverbed in Arizona.
12. Most people who wear red pants: St. Louis.
"We don't start with the perfect idea and then do it, instead we we begin with an okay idea and, as it changes, learn from it. Make it funny and unexpected. A simple action with an absurdist angle is a winning formula." — Mark Allen