Idea debt is a concept coined by graphic novelist Kazu Kibuishi. The concept could be described as holding onto ideas until they loose their luster and the psychic weight that comes with the burden of hanging onto them. We tell ourselves we’ll get around to this or that idea, and a backlog forms, putting us further and further into this creative sense of debt.
In this episode, I talk about this concept and some steps that can be taken to counter it.
In this special episode I welcome my colleague Jeff Hernandez as we discuss our immediate obsessions as well as people that have had a wider influence on us as artists.
There’s an old adage that one should not lose sight of the forest for the trees. It basically means one shouldn’t lose sight of the bigger picture. This certainly true of fringe touring.
I have been traveling around to present my shows – ones I write and perform myself – to “fringe” theatre festivals all over North America in the last several years. I have observed within myself, and in others, how difficult it can be to keep the real reasons one is at the festival in the first place in mind, especially once one is in a new city and in the midst of a big arts festival. A fringe fest can feel overwhelming sometimes.
In this episode I talk about how difficult, but how necessary, it is to keep one’s eye on the prize. Once at a festival, after travel and preparation and all the energy to get the show up on its feet, the impetus is to relax a little. To retreat a bit away from the less fun responsibilities (or opportunities) which are often the real reasons for even coming to that festival. I cover the uncomfortable importance of marketing, of choosing to network and of maintaining a really high production quality among other tips and techniques.
This past year I read a range of books about organization, minimalism and civilized living. These seemingly disparate volumes come at it from different perspectives, but all explore living a curated, intentional, ordered lifestyle.
[NOTE: This episode was originally released January 1, 2018 via SoundCloud. I am re-releasing the first season of episodes here on this site.]
I had what I thought would be a good, quick, rather easy idea. I would apply the superhero movie Thor: Ragnarok to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s three questions for subjectively evaluating a piece of art. It turned out not to be so quick nor so easy to put this particular episode together. Special thanks to Judy the librarian on this one.
[NOTE: This episode was originally released December 3, 2017 via SoundCloud. I am re-releasing the first season of episodes here on this site.]
