There is still space available for this year’s Big Sur Children’s and Young Adult Writing Workshop December 2-4th, 2011 at the beautiful Big Sur Lodge! Go here for info and/or call us at 831-667-2574 to register.
Proffessional faculty include Jennifer Hunt, VP and Editorial Director for Penguin Group/Dial Books, Diane Landolf, Senior Editor at Random House Books for Young Readers, Melissa Manlove, Editor at Chronicle Books, NYT Bestselling author, Ellen Hopkins and author Carolyn Marsden.
If it’s one thing we hate here at the HML it’s scientific mumbo-jumbo and pointed-headed intellectuals telling stuff we already know but wrapping it some cute-sy candy wrapper of words.
What’s that, you ask?
I’m talking about Malcolm Gladwell. I got beef with that dude. I thought about challenging him to a boxing match, a la Axl Rose, but decided the pen is mightier than the glove: I wrote this scathing blog instead.
Malcolm caused a stir recently with his “10,000 Hour Rule” from his book, “Outliers.” What’s the “10,000 Hour Rule,” you ask? It is this:
The rule says that in order for an individual to master any complex skill, be it brain surgery or playing the cello, she must put in 10,000 hours of focused practice. Since a thousand hours seems to be more or less the maximum we humans can handle in one year, ten thousand hours equals ten years.
So it’s just an Ivy League was of saying “practice makes perfect.” Except, I guess, dude ran the numbers and came up with 10,000. No, not 7,323 or 8,234, but 10,000.
How convenient.
One example he gives in the book is The Beatles. By living and rocking in Hamburg during those fun and free years in ’62-63, they honed their craft and transformed themselves from Buddy Holly rip-offs to Mersey beat geniuses (those sharp suits didn’t hurt either.) They, according to Gladwell, must’ve practiced…wait for it…10,000 hours!
Any artist will tell you just gotta do it, man. If you’re a writer, you gotta commit yourself to writing 1,000 words a day, no matter what. Who knows, maybe you’ll bottle lighting and write something really cool by word 1,034. This blog post does a really great job and exploring this idea in a way I’m unwilling to do. Too much work.
Rather, I’ll ask y’all. Do you really have to practice 10,000 hours to be an amazing artist? What about savants? Savants just roll up.
I dunno, Syd Barret comes to mind. As any of his fervent disciples will tell you, he was a genius, but did he really grind it out in his bedroom for 10,000 hours? Did Rimbaud? No he didn’t.
How many rhetorical questions can I ask in one blog post? 10,000?
Anyway, Gladwell’s got me all worked up – I’m sweating – which is just how he likes it. He’s sitting beret-clad in his academic ivory tower cackling over spiced chai while I make scrambled eggs in the rain.
But there is some sweet consolation in know that he’s been wrong before. He said social media was useless in terms of social revolution; just look at the Civil Rights, movement, he said – they did it without Twitter. Then, like, 2 weeks later, the whole Arab Spring revolts broke out using social media.
Isn’t that weird? We thought we were done with concerts for the season, but the Lord had other plans. It’s times like these where that “Footprints” prayer suddenly makes perfect sense.
Philip DeGruy landed in our proverbial lap – which is kinda wrong, if you know anything about Philip – and left us choice-less. Philip, one of the most astounding guitarists and simultaneously funniest dudes ever, will perform an intimate show – for free – tomorrow, Friday Nov. 11th, at the Henry Miller Library.
So what about Phil?
He’s played here a bunch, and at the expense of sounding, oh, trite, Phil masterfully blends the high and low-elements of the human experience. What do I mean?
Phillip is, by far, one of the most talented guitarists I’ve ever seen. He makes it look so effortless, it makes you want to give up. His playing is fluid, clean, melodic, and, well, really awesome. It’s a nifty hybrid of classic elements and almost proggy-vibes. So that’s cool. I mean, look at him slaying “Strawberry Fields Forever.” It’s crazy!
But at the same time, he sometimes sings these sinister, wickedly funny songs. Inappropriate? Sometimes. In fact, some of the funniest stuff I had ever seen or heard. I was hyper-ventilating from laughter. It’s true: ask Keely!
In case you missed it yesterday, you can hear the Fleet Foxes’ Sept. 11th show @ the Henry Miller Library this afternoon at 1 pm (Cali-time)! And you East Coasters can hear it at 4 pm, your-time.
It’s the perfect post-lunch thing to do. Picture it: leave your cube at, say, noon. Roll on up to Au Bon Pain and get some nice chicken sandwich on a ciabatta roll. Maybe some sweet potato chips if they have ‘em, and an Odwalla. Each your lunch outside and quasi-gossip to your co-worker about Debby in HR.
But your mind is elsewhere, because at 1 pm, California-time, you’ll be back in the warm womb of your cube, getting transported down Rt. 1 to Big Sur. You’ll be listening to that Fleet Foxes show online, on XM Satellite radio.
Here are the details straight from XM’s page, here. That’s where you can hear the show too.
Fleet Foxes performed on the intimate lawn of the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, CA on September 11, 2011 for 350 very lucky people. Sirius XMU brings you this incredible performance in it’s entirety. (1 hr)
It’ll be on XM’s indie rock station, known as XM U. It’ll be re-airing the on these days:
* November 10th at 4:00 pm ET / 1 pm PT
* November 11th at 9:00 am ET / 6 am PT (for all you bakery workers)
* November 13th at 12:00 pm ET / 9 am PT
And watch it with the inter-office gossip. Gossiping is like tearing apart a pillow on the roof of a building, and seeing the feathers fly everywhere, and then trying to put the feathers back in the pillow case.* It’s bad stuff, and likely bad for your career too.
* That analogy was straight out of the movie “Doubt.”
“Let’s Go Trippin’ is the name of a rad Dick Dale song, widely considered to be the first surf instrumental ever. Not surprisingly, Dale is known as the “King of Surf Guitar.”
Ironically, it’s also the name of the latest installment in Hippie Sven’s Endless Summer Surf Safari. Perhaps a bit surprisingly, Sven is known as the “Mentally-Impaired Duke of Post-Industrial Vadstena.”
But labels are just that: labels. What’s important here is the fact that the HML’s End of Summer Sale has been extended until Friday, November 11th, at 6 pm Cali-time!
So for those of you who went to the Sept. 11th, ((folkYEAH!!))-curated Fleet Foxes show – or those who didn’t – re-live the magic repeatedly on XM Satellite radio!!
It’s true: you can listen to the entire Fleet Foxes show, which, by the way, was incredible. How, for example, did they replicate those intricate harmonies with such precision in a live setting, and without the aides of auto-tune? I guess they practiced a lot.
Now we’d be lying if we said we were keen on the machinations of satellite radio. But this much is true: in the wake of the Sputnik debacle, US government built up a network of satellite radio stations during the height of the Cold War (the most popular station being “The Johnny Mathis Carousel.”) After the Iron Curtain fell, private companies assumed control of the stations.
And now you can hear the Fleet Foxes.
So here are the details straight from XM’s page, here. That’s where you can hear the show too.
Fleet Foxes Concert Tonight 9:00 pm ET Fleet Foxes performed on the intimate lawn of the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, CA on September 11, 2011 for 350 very lucky people. Sirius XMU brings you this incredible performance in it’s entirety. (1 hr)
It’ll be on XM’s indie rock station, known as XM U (get it? Like college.)
If we’re reading the site correctly, the show will be re-broadcast (re-broadcasted?) four times. And they are:
* November 9th at 9:00 pm ET / 6 pm PT
* November 10th at 4:00 pm ET / 1 pm PT
* November 11th at 9:00 am ET / 6 am PT (for all you bakery workers)
* November 13th at 12:00 pm ET / 9 am PT
Indeed, XM is proverbially “milking the Foxes” and that’s cool with us.
It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating Victoria Day on May 26th, placing gunpowder between two anvils, the top one upturned, igniting the charge, and hurling the upper anvil into the air.
Well, all is not lost. Because to quote our pal Mac MacDonald at the Monterey County Weekly:
My guess is that despite the great Indian summer-type weather lately, we’ve seen the last of the outdoor music events, but that doesn’t mean the music itself is going into hibernation for the winter. Quite the contrary.
Hate to sound like a broken record, but I am truly astounded at the quantity and quality of music being offered in this area.
That’s Mac for you – ever the optimist (hence his myriad of nicknames: Sunny Mac, Mac the Golden-Thought’ed, and Mac the Optimist.)
And he’s right: the great music will continue during the winter months, thanks in no part to the musical juggernaut that is ((folkYEAH!!)) Check their site and their Facebook a lot. And of course there’s also the Alternative Cafe,Crepe Place,Fernwood etc etc. You know this.
We at the Library, meanwhile, were going to devote our winter to the new Murakami book. But apparently it’s, like, 924 pages, and according to the Times, it’s kinda plodding.
Oh well then, I guess it’s back to Plan B (for the sixth winter in a row, btw.)
“Winter blues,” at the moment, is a misnomer. It’s nice and sunny from where I’m at, which’d be the Monterey Public Library.
That said, the HML’s 30th anniversary summer is officially over. Where’d the time go?
It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating Victoria Day on May 26th, placing gunpowder between two anvils, the top one upturned, igniting the charge, and hurling the upper anvil into the air.
Well, all is not lost. Because to quote our pal Mac MacDonald at the Monterey County Weekly:
My guess is that despite the great Indian summer-type weather lately, we’ve seen the last of the outdoor music events, but that doesn’t mean the music itself is going into hibernation for the winter. Quite the contrary.
Hate to sound like a broken record, but I am truly astounded at the quantity and quality of music being offered in this area.
That’s Mac for you – ever the optimist (hence his myriad of nicknames: Sunny Mac, Mac the Golden-Thought’ed, and Mac the Optimist.)
And he’s right: the great music will continue during the winter months, thanks in no part to the musical juggernaut that is ((folkYEAH!!)) Check their site and their Facebook a lot. And of course there’s also the Alternative Cafe,Crepe Place,Fernwood etc etc. You know this.
We at the Library, meanwhile, were going to devote our winter to the new Murakami book. But apparently it’s, like, 924 pages, and according to the Times, it’s kinda plodding.
Oh well then, I guess it’s back to Plan B (for the sixth winter in a row, btw.)
