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For the last two weeks I have been neck-deep in a task, fighting against the deadline which, by the way, had already been extended. I was working on a videopoem of approximately 18 minutes, a collage of excerpts from songs and poems, with images in the background. Put that way, it does not seem like a job that will need the full attention of the team. The problem is that my team consists of only one person: myself.

Depending on who you have by your side, working alone can prove to be a huge advantage, but the process is often quite tiring. And, of course, it gets worse if you get too caught up in the details, as I tend to be. It is a problem I have not only as a content producer, but also as a consumer: I pay too much attention to details.

Is the audio loud and clear enough or can you still her me breathing? Is the music coming in at the right time? Is the fade out too long? What if I remove the final 0.3 seconds of that video clip? Details that certainly an inattentive spectator would never notice, but that worry me and prevent the project to be considered concluded, until I reach the desired point.

I do not remember if it was a colleague or a professor from the my PhD days who said: you do not finish writing a a thesis you simply abandon it at some point. I think this comment also applies to the process of mixing an album (face it: you will never achieve the “ideal mix” you have in mind) or reading a book.

Am I suggesting you should quit your readings before reaching the end? No. I have already done that, and the feeling is terrible, I do not recommend it at all. On the other hand, I certainly do not recommend my reading methods either. They inlcude, for instance, deciding in the middle of page 157 to return to page 80, because I just remembered a delightful character quip, and I would like to enjoy it one more time. Yet again.

This is exactly my problem now. I am stuck on volume three of In Search of Lost Time by Proust precisely because the book is so good. And, of course, you could say that it is not about the time it takes you to read from cover to cover, but rather the pleasure of reading. Ok, agreed, but even this pleasure can be put to the test if you cannot set a pace for reading.

The problem with getting too caught up in the details is that eventually you will forget about the main plot. Focusing on details is great, and a neat execution is even better, but for every project there is a sweet spot to be reached. Your mission is to get there or, in some cases, as close as possible.

Trying to reinvent that sweet spot over and over is a huge waste of time. It will only prevent you from getting involved in other projects or, even worse, it will make you miss some deadlines. Remember: an imperfect project, however duly entered in a call, is infinitely better than a project kept in a file, lost in the memory of your computer.

Be seeing you!

G.F.

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You probably know the story of Ugly Duckling , but just to be sure: Danish author Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) first published it on November 11, 1843. The tale was part of the the first volume of “New Fairy Tales”, and it has been been adapted for various media, including opera, musical, and animated film.

In the plot, a baby duck suffers a lot of verbal and physical abuse because of his appearence. After a classic “hero’s journey”, during which he goes through a harsh winter hiding in a cave on the partially frozen lake, the ugly duckling, now grown, finally discovers that it was, in fact, a majestic swan.

The way I see it, Ugly Duckling and Superman have a lot in common. I talked about super heros here already, but today I would like to talk specifically about Superman, more specifically about the Kryptonite x Superman relationship. And his relationship to Ugly Duckling.

You see, in both cases the first source of destabilization came from the family. The parents of Superman and the solo mother in Ugly Duckling both tried, in some way, to protect them, but their efforts were not enough to free our characters from the terrible suffering caused by their origins, whether in the form of bullying or as a symbolic artifact. Actually, we could sumarize both plots in two words: family, caution.

Maybe the reason for the huge success of these characters is related to the fact that we feel represented, when we realize that families/environments of origin in general, and not only ours, can be the source of much of our joys and good memories, but they might also become the first element of oppression one must face.

I am particularly impressed by the number of people who claim to have their most fervent supporters among their family members. People who believed in and supported their ideas and encouraged their careers from the ground up.

Very beautiful stories indeed, but they do not even remotely resemble mine. Some of us need to get things done without the extra support of family members.

Despite what the gossip magazines say, a significant part of us needs to go on even without standing ovations, without huge financial sums involved in our contracts. The truth is that a huge number of performers have a routine much closer to a factory worker than a fairy tale princess.

Perhaps people get confused by the way the life of many artists is represented on screen and in literature: they are either starving bodies carrying tormented souls, or millionaires followed by paparazzi day and night.

The dichotomy confuses our family and closest friends, who think that if you are not rich or famous like that guy they showed on TV, so maybe this thing you do is just a hobby, and you should probably get yourself a real job.

Most of the time, this distorted view is not even expressed in words. Non-verbal signals include disapproving looks or small gestures (rolling eyes come to mind) that can be quite painful for those at whom they are directed.

If you are part of the happy 100%-family support bunch, you probably have no idea what I am talking about. For the rest of us is either Ugly Duckling or Superman.

I do not know how you handle your kryptonite, but I really wish you would not give up on your swan flight.

Be seeing you!

G.F.

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‘Life is a lot like jazz – it´s best when you improvise.’

— George Gershwin

Last week I was saved by the extension of a deadline for submitting a project that I really want to happen.
I never count on the possibility of extending the submission date, so I just kept on working as crazy until the last moment, and when it came to the very hard moment, when I had to decide between sending a version of my project that I was not pleased with, or simply losing the gig, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel in a social media post: “application deadline had been extended for another week”. Such beautiful words…

The effect on my body was quie peculiar. Suddenly, I felt as if my muscles had realized all the pressure they had subjected to. The endless hours in front of the computer, the less than ideal moving pattern, the lack of sunlight… My body became self-aware and decided to rebel. I felt extremely tired and, as much as I tried to keep working, it was pretty obvious that I needed some extra sleep. Who does not, right?

The funny thing about deadline extensions is that they do not generate a domino effect. A postponed deadline does not necessarily cause your next tasks to be shifted accordingly. Usually, the euphoria stage passes quickly. After discovering that, yes, you will have time to finish reviewing your project and calmly complete the form and submit the millions of requested attachments, in a very short time, you will likely find yourself again tangled up with other deadlines that will now collide.

It is all very complicated already as it is, but I insist on making the situation worse, by maintaining an unshakable belief in the fact that I am very smart. So very smart that I can get out of any tangle of tasks unscathed. I am not sure if this happens to everyone (hope so), but I tend to think that I am going to get rid of tasks much faster than I actually do. Either that, or I plan too much for one day. Both things, probably.

One should never forget that life is a lot like jazz. Even if you try your best to have everything organized, the probability that you will have to improvise at some point is, well, one hundred percent. And any jazz cat knows that to really improvise well, it takes a lot of time and a lot of practice. No one flies without first learning to walk. To be able to put your personal stamp on an interpretation, you need to be so familiar with the original version that you can transcend it.

I know that perfectionism is a bit out of date, and that the order is to deliver a lot of content, as quickly as possible. I also know that there is a time when it is necessary to stop correcting and simply finish the work, but between the inability to put an end to projects and doing stuff in a careless way, there is a vast field to conquer.

Be seeing you!

G.F.

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When I was twenty-eight years old I took driving lessons. It was actually the first time in my life I experienced being behind the wheel of a vehicle. For some people, this might have been a magical moment, a transcendent empowering experience, but for me it was the incepction of a decision I would fully understand and fiercely take months later, on a pouring late morning, after coming back from my sucessful driving test at the DMV. Let us start at the beginning, shall we?

It is possible that where you live it is very important to have your own means of transport. I have lived in places with varying levels of access to public transport, but frankly, it would be a big lie if I told you that not having a driver’s license hold me back me in any sense. I never missed an opportunity in my life for not being a driver, nor did I have to stop any activity because I never owned a car.

Anyway, despite all this being very clear to me today, at the time I confess that I gave in to the old argument that driving a car is an indisputable proof of success, and learning how to drive it is a ritual towards maturity, a V.I.P. pass to the world of motorized grown-ups. A happy nation of drivers, free to go wherever they want. Naturally, the ecological and economic impacts of such, let us say, mindset, were never mentioned, but anyway, they were good arguments. Not realistic, not sustainable, but good, in a Hollywood-esque way.

So, I convinced myself that driving would be like described in the songs and enrolled in a driving school. What was I looking lor? First of all, a bit of approaval from the “normal people” (one of uthem, finally!), but I was also curious. The idyllic aura of freedom, the feeling of being able to get lost in the vastness of the roads and live many adventures, was it really true, as so many representations (novels, tunes, films) advertised?

Controlling the machinery of a vehicle is usually portrayed as a superpower and the incessant search for speed appears as a value per se in the history of humanity since the Modern Era. The idea of experiencing it myself seemed very compelling. When I thought about driving, what came to my mind were songs like: Across 110th StreetI (or any theme from the movie Jackie Brown) or BR-3. As you can see, I had a very, very wrong idea about driving.

You may find it funny, but the truth is that, the moment the DMV employee said I had passed the practical test, I thought: “That is all good and well, but this stuff is really not for me.” Now if you ask me, I do not regret the time, nor the investment in the classes at all. I see them the tools that allowed me to learn a very important lesson: never do things that do not make sense to you, just because “everyone says it has to be that way”.

I have followed that lesson to the letter ever since. Perhaps you have learned it already a long time ago, or maybe you are just starting your journey and my words do not make much sense to you yet. No matter where you stand in life right now, it is always a good idea to refresh useful knowledge.

Be seeing you!

G.F.

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I recently talked about this podcast I produced for a research group on Comic Art. I asked research colleagues to talk about their experiences in the group, with no limit of time. The result: a very different use of the total time freedom.

If you are invited to participate on a podcast, the golden rule is to check the average length of episodes and act accordingly. To tell you the truth, this rule could also be applied to videos, articles, lectures etc (talking about podcasts, in case you are interested in more hints, I have given a few others on the second part of the last episode of QuaranJazz )

I have always found it a shame that people waste a good chance to express themselves, and since we are talking about comics, I once read a comic strip that said: “no matter what you’re doing, having done it is better.” So funny and yet so true.

Each and every activity well done requires effort (preparing what is going to be said, training, correcting errors, improving the text, recording) and time. To make things worse, most of such participations “as a guest” do not involve any kind of financial compensation. So, after all, why is it important to accept such invitations?

Well, first of all, because they are part of the networking game that any professional has (or should know) to play. Honestly, this argument should be enough on its own, but in case you are the hard-to-be-convinced type, I have others. My favourite is: you have to grab the opportunity when it comes, because there is no certainty that it will return. Ever.

I know we all like to think that nothing and no one can change what fate has in store for us, but if there is one thing life has taught me, it is that, it is always better to have a plan B, in case fate does not honor its part of the deal.

Having a plan B sometimes means to do “boring” stuff (if compared to the thrill of the stage) we would rather not, such as getting a degree or some sort of formal education. This is just an example, but you would not believe how needed good musicians are at schools and universities!

I see so many vacancies being filled by mediocre musicians, but who strive to fulfill the steps that a graduate degree requires, while highly talented musicians do not achieve the deserved recognition, simply because the market is cruel and, let us face the truth, it does not always reward the best and they lack that “piece of paper” to get the job.

Anyway, my two cents are: even if you are invited for a short participation in a small event, or if the invitation is for a short-range program or, say, a local magazine, once you agreed to take part in it, do your best. That includes using all the space you have the right to, always with common sense, obviously.

After the advent of the internet, information just circulates on and on, and you can never know where your message will end up, and by whom it will be seen. Actually, the paradox of the perpetual digital present is that the average opportunity of yesterday is literaly just a click away from becoming the big chance of tomorrow.

It is said that in politics there are no vacant spaces, but I believe the same goes for the opportunities that arise in our lives: if one came your way and you did not use it, someone else will.

Be seeing you!

G.F.