I remember you well
Capital Thinking • Issue #1199 • View online
Cole Schafer has a great post about the importance of putting your ass in the chair and getting real work done, but he also talks a bit about the importance of place, of setting, and inspiration.
Here's a little bit of that piece from Cole:
Chelsea Hotel #2
Written by Cole Schafer:
"People who sacrifice beauty for efficiency get what they deserve"
- Tom Robbins
I've spent the better part of July in Manhattan, writing from a rented flat that sits a block away from the Chelsea Hotel. I walk past it nearly every day and like to pretend that some of its creative energies rub off on me.
Before the Chelsea Hotel was renovated into the luxurious hotel that it is today, it was a cheap, shabby Victorian dollhouse that served as a temporary home to Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Iggy Pop, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and Jack Kerouac.
Leonard Cohen––a long time resident of the Chelsea Hotel––told a story about him sharing an elevator with Janis Joplin.
After a brief moment of the customary silence one might expect on an elevator shared between two people, Cohen asked Joplin if she was looking for someone.
Tongue in cheek, Joplin said Kris Kristofferson. Cohen smiled wryly and responded, "You're in luck, I am Kris Kristofferson."
Five minutes later, they were in bed together.
Cohen would go on to write of their brief love affair in the gorgeously heart-breaking song Chelsea Hotel #2...
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
You were talking so brave and so sweet
Givin' me head on the unmade bed
While the limosines wait in the street
Later in the song, he writes of Joplin's untimely death...
Now but you got away, didn't you babe?
You just turned your back on the crowd
Those lines kill me every time I hear them.
They kill me now as I read them.
I've always been an outspoken proponent of the potent powers of placebo, particularly in regard to the creative process.
Most of creativity is showing up, siting your ass in a chair and doing the work. From my experience, the muse does not whisper in the ears of the sloth.
However, another facet of creativity we don't talk about often enough is placebo. Not so much sugar pills but setting.
Something that enterprises often overlook is exactly what we are discussing here today: Setting.
Companies have forsaken in-person connection for the sake of efficiency and while they might be saving money, they're beginning to see the effects on their creativity.
Tom Robbins, the brilliant author behind Still Life with Woodpecker, has a quote that I love...
People who sacrifice beauty for efficiency get what they deserve.
Brands lack a great deal of originality these days. I'd argue its because they're having creative brainstorms over Zoom.
I don't mean to sound crass but a virtual creative brainstorm is like phone sex. It might get the job done, sure, but don't tell me it's anything like the real thing.
This is why setting matters so much. It not only moisturizes the creative process, it gives the creative person an endless well of material to pull from.
This is why setting matters so much. It not only moisturizes the creative process, it gives the creative person an endless well of material to pull from.
Stephen King once said that a writer can't be a writer unless they read; and voraciously. I would argue that a creative can't be a creative––on neither an artistic or enterprise level––unless they're actively participating in life.
If Leonard Cohen doesn't stay at the Chelsea Hotel, he never steps into the elevator; and if he never steps in the elevator, he never makes small talk with Janis Joplin; and if he never makes small talk with Janis Joplin, he never climbs in bed with her; and if he never climbs in bed with her, he never writes Chelsea Hotel #2.
And what a sad world that would be.
*Featured post image: Janis in her San Francisco apartment, 1968 by Jim Marshall
Source: facebook.com