elizaskinner.net - the jambox

Now that I’m temping again, I listen to tons of podcasts all day. I’ve always been a fan of radio, but like watching TV on the internet, the lack of commercials interruptions makes it even better, and I’ve found a lot of great shows. If you’re looking to kill time at work, I’d recommend This American Life, and Kasper Hauser’s parody. And check out Jack McBrayer’s interview on Fair Game - if you don’t know him, it’s fun to hear the real personality behind his lovable muppet-like character, Kenneth, on 30 Rock. If you do know him, it’s really exciting and neat to hear him retaining every bit of his adorable and genuine kindness as his celebrity grows.
Today I found this episode of Studio 360 about creativity and solitude with Jonathan Lethem as a special guest. It’s about people who need to work alone to be creative, and it was nice to hear solitude respected and defended. It made me think of Top Design, which has been frustrating me. This show villainizes people with strong creative vision, painting them as “mean” or “difficult” if they have a hard time working with other designers. The work they are being asked to do is bold, personal, and visionary - all of these qualities suffer through collaboration. I saw Julie Tamor speak one time and she vehemently advocated never doubting your own vision - that the second you start making compromises your work suffers, and that women more often than men are expected to make artistic concessions. We’re left with a choice - be a bitch or be mediocre.

Long story short - Top Design sucks.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 11:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.