When I started this blog I didn’t really have a solid idea of what I wanted it to be, honestly I still don’t. This has definitely been one of those ‘enjoy the journey more than the destination’ type of experiences.
One of the parts I’ve struggled with is finding my voice. I’ve got plenty of role models of course, but there’s not really any value in just emulating someone else. Not to mention how hard it would be to do so. There’s no brute-force way to sound as alluring and passionate as Quintin Smith, no shortcut to being as musically and comedically talented as Brian David Gilbert.
While I try to learn what I can from these people, I’ve often found it to be just as helpful to realise who you don’t want to sound like. After all, the stars can help you navigate through the night, but it’s the reflectors that keep you on the road and out of the trees.
Lately I wonder whether I should be writing to an audience at all? Some days I feel like I should just be writing for myself, but that leaves me with an awkward sense of unaccountability. An awareness of the laziness that will inevitably come for me. Is there value in what I make or should I seek that value in making it? It’s been an oddly introspective and philosophical few months.
This will be an odd post. I’ve wanted to talk a bit about inspiration, art, and my recent experiences with them, and none of you can stop me.
Assume Everything Is An Intentional Choice
While I have always held an interest in art, especially film and music, I don’t feel that I’ve ever been particularly good at analysing it. Not that art requires analysis, but I felt jealous of those who were able to foster a deeper connection with the pieces which I loved. Thus, when Patrick H Willem’s video How To Analyse Movies stumbled into my view a couple years ago, it caught my immediate interest. I highly encourage those interested to watch it, but I’m just going to boil it down to a potent reduction, and tell you the rule that helped make sense of art criticism for me.
“Part of analysing film is treating every aspect of it as a deliberate choice. … Give the filmmakers some credit. Assume they chose to do it that way, and then figure out why.”
The day after I watched this video, while I was still processing its concepts, I went to see Transformers One at the cinema with my partner. I have an odd history with Transformers, its weaved into the fabric of my childhood, entangled in memories of lost family and escapism. It’s odd to feel such a deep connection to a property I don’t even think I would call myself a fan of.
After the credits rolled and we made our exit, I proceeded to spout off theory after theory at my partner. I’m sure I would have liked the film regardless, after all I’m a big fan of animation, but going in with a critical eye just made themes and subtexts so much more apparent. It wasn’t just in the story anymore either, I got clues from camera movements, hints from shot composition.
It was incredibly fun to let myself read further into the clipped-wing working-class revolution themes, or to ponder about the inverted theology of Cybertron. It was fun to realise that Primus (the world’s creator) being at Cybertron’s core implied that descending is to become holier, while the surface is a barren hellscape full of the damned.
It was the first time I had realised how personally entertaining and rewarding it can be to let yourself get lost in something. It gave me the tools to say more than “This was good so I liked it, this was bad so I didn’t”. I had the tools to find my own meaning within something, and it didn’t even matter if others agreed.
How to keep what you love in your mind
Too often I reach a piece of media’s conclusion and find myself sitting with it, unsure of how to continue. Inevitably I move on to something new. It will fade like most things do. But sometimes I feel that these memories deserve better, that it is unkind to simply put it down and walk away.
It was Jacob Geller’s videos on Shadow Of The Colossus and The Future Of Writing About Games which helped me understand the value of continuing to unpack what a piece of art means to you. To keep a space for it in your mind or heart. That to read or write on the topic is to allow yourself to immerse once more, and continue processing the experience.
In an age of consumerism, a personal library is less a horde of knowledge than it is a pile. In both books and games my shelves are full, with a ratio of used to untouched which makes me blush. Even those which I have partaken in, those which I have resonated with on a deep level, get swept into the back of my mind by the lazy river of constant acquisitions and novelties. This blog has been a valuable exercise in slowing my pace, and becoming more deliberate in my thoughts.
To set pen to paper, you have to formulate a tangible idea. To condense those ephemeral thoughts and feelings which you have accrued into an opinion, a statement, anything. How many of us have planned fantastic things in our heads, then began to excise it from our skulls and realised it doesn’t make a lick of sense. There is still value even in that. In writing these reviews, or whatever they are, I come to terms with what I truly felt, and get to live with it a little bit longer.
Another inspiration that I feel pairs nicely with this sentiment is my recent experiences with the Song Exploder podcast, which has artists give an in-depth explanation and history of one of their hits. As a fan of Deceptacon by Le Tigre, it was an easy choice for my first episode. By the way please don’t laugh that it’s kind of a Transformers reference, again.
What I thought of as a simple entertaining song revealed itself to be a raw feminist punk jam demanding to know ‘Who took the fun out of music?’, and directing disdain to the joyless state of the music industry. The episode went into similarly elucidating detail on the specific ways they achieved their sounds, their odd choice of instruments and samples, even the artist’s laissez-faire attitude to lyric writing. All of this solidifying in my mind the proper artistry which fills this track.
The grand benefit of listening to that episode is that even after its 27 minute runtime concluded, I will never hear that song the same way ever again. I am forever changed, and more connected.
I followed this with A-Ha’s breakdown of Take On Me, which presented a tale of constant failure and improvement, ultimately resulting in the best possible version of a now classic pop song. Then Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Out, recontextualising what I thought of as somewhat generic lyrics into a hybrid first-love story and sniper duel.
Episodes may vary greatly in the stories they tell, but the most consistently engaging aspect is hearing artists themselves talk about inspiration. The passing moments and unimportant conversations which serendipitously make hits and spawn lifelong artistic careers. History has been so permanently changed by misheard statements and happy accidents. It’s hard not to feel inspired yourself.
My place in all this
There will always be a conflict in art between personal expression and commercial value. Even this meek digital corner of mine confuses my motives some days. Should I write what entertains and satisfies solely myself, or should I be keeping an audience in mind? Would it be better to write more routinely, but less passionately? A thought hovers at the back of my mind more often than I’d like to admit, “Wouldn’t it be nice if this ended up being something?”.
At the end of the day, I think this is just for me. I like the idea of someone reading it, getting joy from something that I produced. But ultimately I do this for myself.
All this talk of inspiration and what art means to me reminds me of a moment from last year.
I’d started listening to a bit of Fiona Apple, she’s an incredible musician, and I particularly loved a song of hers called Paper Bag. I feel it resonated because I see myself as an overly romantic person. Too much so.
The chorus hit especially close to home. Or at least, it did how I thought it went.
Hunger hurts, and I wanted him so bad, I would kill
Cause I know I’m a mess he don’t wanna clean up
I’ve got to focus, these hands are too shaky to hold
Hunger hurts but starving works, when it costs too much to love.
mine
Hunger hurts, and I want him so bad, oh, it kills
Cause I know I’m a mess he don’t wanna clean up
I got to fold ‘cause these hands are too shaky to hold
Hunger hurts but starving works when it costs too much to love.
fiona’s
I’m not the best at actually hearing the words of lyrics, often just seeing the song’s title will give me one of those eureka moments. “That’s what he was saying!?”. In this chorus I thought I heard a hopeful lament. About how if I want to be loved I need to pull myself together, that it can be done with time. It was what I needed to hear at the time. It meant a lot.
It’s hard to describe how I felt the day I discovered that this was neither what was sung, nor the song’s intent. I would say it goes for a much darker, sadder interpretation.
The thing that really made it difficult for me was that the previous meaning had meant so much to me I, had even planned on embroidering it onto something. Memorialising this piece of art that resonated with me. I never did. I didn’t see the point. What value is there in a hallucination, an imaginary word never spoken.
I think only now, after all I’ve learned in the year since, do I realise that the art which never existed is still as valuable to me as any other extant piece. If anything its moreso, because it exists just for me.
This has been a strange post, but, I think there’s only one way I can end it properly. I’m going to do something with that hallucination. Misinterpretation or not, it meant something to me. I hope you can likewise appreciate the things that hold meaning to you and you alone.
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