Afleveringen
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This week we're talking about the things that aren't there. Plus: Trash drafts, Parrot Face, the dog that didn't bark, well-dressed clowns, empty piazzas, terrible silence, Mike Birbiglia, and the smell of space. (It smells like steak, apparently.)
This is the last episode of Season 3. We’ll be back soon with new episodes. In the meantime, keep your ears peeled for two Very Special Episodes™️ of our between-seasons experiment I Might Be Wrong But… , in which one of us tries to convince the other that some fringe cultural artifact he inexplicably loves is actually — y’know: Good?
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How do you know if what you're creating is any good? This week: Juggling the internal and external critics. Plus: Humility, shouting at clouds, Idiots vs. Fools, marrying up, Baby Shark, shame, brainwashing, sometimes it's harder to suck, The Well of Metaphor, fact checkers, and getting the brushes back out.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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People like to say the great ones make it look easy, but what are we really looking at when we see a great creator showing what looks like effortlessness? Plus: Spectacular failures, concerned murmurs, Jenny from the block, beautiful aliens, Henri Matisse, rubber band balls, drifting toward the abyss, ha cha cha and hot dogs by the sea.
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This week we're talking about doing what you're bad at. Why do some people charge blindly full speed ahead, and others try to shrink into their own shoes? And what's to be gained from what can be a traumatic experience? Also: Noble pain, sociopaths, Norma Desmond, tinnitus, bad steak, Christmas island, horrifying plunky sounds and more Mel Cooley.
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This week we're looking at limitations in creative work. When do they hurt? When can they help? And how can we become more agile creators by learning how to work with them, rather than around them? Also: Fake expertise, low ceilings, ukuleles vs. bowling balls, rich idiots, guitar control, speed wounds, bourgeois sharpnress, and I Kid Because I Love.
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This week we're looking at a part of the job that comes hard for many creative people -- self-promotion. Is there a way to be an effective promoter without feeling awkward and cheap? We suggest that there is, and tell you a way forward. Also: Big asks, mug's games, the SEO scam, wide boys, Chelmsford, crying in coffee shops, lost luggage, bonbons and juggling for Jesus.
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It's one of the paradoxes of creative life: the longer you do it, the more tools you acquire, the more it becomes the goal to get simpler. To do less. This week we're talking about the quest for simplicity, and about finding the sweet spot between brevity and clarity. Plus: Slow TV, phantom limbs, Robot Thatcher, greening, a blow to the head, Wesley Van Wesleyson, promises and threats, and content cubed.
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Every creator likes think they're shiny and golden, dancing with their muse in a singular act of invention. But is that true? Is that how it works? Or is all creativity an act of remix? Are we inevitably treading on ground others have walked before us? And if there's no such thing as originality -- why do we bother?
Also: Brain fizz and sparky fingertips, Woz, falling down, Pinwright's Progress, high blood pressure, how to breathe, grand larceny, DJ Kool Herc, Muskification, and 400,000 years ago (a Tuesday). -
This week we're looking at one of the hardest decisions a creator can make: When is it time to admit an idea isn't panning out and move on? It can be agonizing to put aside a piece of work in which you've invested time and care and effort, but sometimes it's not just the best choice, it's the only one that makes sense.
Plus: Loud noises, Labrador footwarmers, Italian getaways, toboggans of regret, beans on toast, the world's longest putt, unconscionable delays and a big steely swan-like metaphor in the sky.
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When Apple announced its plans for artificial intelligence earlier this week, the presentation failed to make a minor point: AI, as currently constituted, doesn't work very well. Also, not for nothing, it's theft on a grand scale. So: Here comes the future, we guess?
This week, we're kicking off our third season with a deep dive on the role of artificial intelligence in creativity. Auto-summarized version: You can keep it.
Plus: Eliza, angry ducks, carnies, strike snacks and idea smoothies, rat snakes, juggling fatalities, bullet-headed Bond villains, clean smart data, the Eternal Return and alt-right Seinfeld.
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This week, in the second of two Very Special Episodes™️, we're wrapping up our mini-series "I Might Be Wrong, But... " with a look at the 1973 blaxploitation demi-classic "Willie Dynamite." Bill takes the position that it's worth a second look; Mat argues the contrary, taking the classic dialectical stance he identifies as "Nuh uh." Wherever you come down on this cultural question, surely we can all agree on one thing: This episode is 33 minutes long.
Imagination & Junk returns for its third season on June 12. -
Join us, won't you, as we clear our throats before Season 3 with a Very Special After School Episode of Appointment Listening we're calling "I Might Be Wrong, But... " In this first of two bonus installments we're kicking around the idea that Steven Seagal's 1991 magnum opus "Out For Justice" is actually kind of... good? Yes, we've lost our damn minds, but only temporarily; we'll be back with another full season of the usual fast, funny, probing conversations about creativity on June 12. In the meantime: Here's this thing!
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In the last episode of Season 2, we're recalling the worst things that ever happened to us as creative people, and trying to excavate whatever lessons we can from the wreckage. Featuring: Murder in Encino, and a near-international incident in Beijing.
We'll be back with a new season of Imagination & Junk after a short break.
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In this episode we're talking about tools of the trade. Every creative trade has them. But they function in a variety of ways: As tools, yes, but also as signifiers of membership in a group, and as objects of desire. Also: Man purses, puppies, promiscuous scribbling, snappy suits, Japanese dining tables, Toots Thielemans, custom juggling balls and cricket.
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Here's a creativity brain puzzler: Is it better to break new ground or to keep polishing the same act until it gleams? It depends, to a degree, on for whom you create in the first place. Also: Jackie Chan, treading water, private eyes, the changeup pitch, Eurovision, litigation, the verdict of history, singularity, space shoes, The Shipping Forecast and quite a bit, actually, about the eternal villainy of The Beach Boys' Mike Love.
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This week we're looking at Getting Things Done, and at the cult of productivity that's sprung up around David Allen's original GTD methodology. It looks good, it sounds good -- but is it an aid to creative work or the exact opposite of what creativity calls for? Once again, we have thoughts. And this time we've put them in a nice list, with checkboxes. Also: Raccoons, stone tablets, Starfighters, making a mess and tidying up, disresepcting the Bing, shallots and where to put them, things that are too good to check, and the night Bobby Flay made a mockery of Kitchen Stadium.
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Can creativity be malign? Or is it always just... creativity? In this episode we're looking at what researchers call "dark creativity," or the use of creative tools to gain an unfair advantage over another person. And yes: We have thoughts. Also: Con artists, hammers, work snacks, spoon-bending, Bond villains, Stevie Wonder Wednesday and the trouble with ponds.
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This week we're talking about criticism, including the trickiest kind: Self-criticism. We'll also look at the buzzing neon sign hanging outside the hotel room of your mind that spells out your own doubts and insecurities, and how to filter it out. Plus: Humility and its plodding cousin experience, spoons, the Dunning-Kruger Effect, sleeping policemen, fixed-rate mortgages, the magical power of putting things in drawers, and the worst heckle ever. (Seriously. The all-time worst.)
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In this episode we're looking at Impostor Syndrome, the conviction that you've been faking it and are always just inches away from being unmasked. We have a theory about where it came from (hint: it was the '70s), and some thoughts about how it can be turned to creative people's advantage. Plus: Penn & Teller, non-apology apologies, fresh batteries, a ridiculous excess of materials, and the Moscow Philharmonic. (Or were they?)
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How do you get your audience in the tent? And how do you send them home happy at the end? Journalists have the lede and the kicker; entertainers have the opener and the closer. But they're not the only creative people with tricks. Every art form has them, and if you dig into them you can see some of the wiring that holds all creative work together. Also: Coco Chanel, Spot is a dog, a bowler hat with a chess piece on the top, and that time Bill had a chance to alter the course of history and declined to do so.
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