Creators of Intensity

Just after the war, in Japan, some directors were auditioning actors for a movie.

Akira Kurosawa tells that when he saw Toshiro Mifune in the room, he asked him to act angry, or waiting. He was in an awe. He was so amazed by his “presence”…

They made SEVEN movies together, including Seven Samurai. He’s the guy with the sword, on the left :

We all know women who, when they enter a room, make the room quiet. It’s also a presence.

It can be linked to beauty, a certain beauty, but not necessarily. It’s about essence. A whole pack maybe : intelligence, elegance, a… way.

There’s something here, a Type. I call this type “creators of intensity”. I had a few friends like that in my life.

These persons have always incredible stories to tell. They meet incredible people, who make incredible things because of them.

Their presence make other change. They gave’em energy.

Stars (Monroe?), great managers (ever heard of Napoléon?), or writers, or scientists. They are surrounded with incredible stories.

I think they give energy, and inspirations. People around want to prove something, they stand up to be seen, maybe. They can act crazy, really crazy.

Then let’s hope they’re not drama kings and queens! Before chaos will swirl around them then, even deaths. Endlessly.

Thanks for reading!

Intense Rarity

In the bookstore I talked with a man looking for an out of order book about cancer, which I found second handed for him for hundreds of Euros.

He said this book must be a very big best seller.

Which is NOT.

So we talked. The book (about alternative cares for cancers) is rare, therefore expensive, but this does not mean it would be a best seller.

So I named it : “Displacement of Intensity” and we laughed.

You can make a good car and you’ll sell millions of it. Or you can buy a rare unique Italian car from the fifties… in auction, for millions of dollars.

Well, you see : I don’t know what to do with this concept…

Can you help me?

Therefore I chose a picture I’d like to show to my colleague who wears a cowy nose ring – which I find ridiculous but it’s a free country. Feathers. Aren’t they gorgeous?

Quantity or Quality? Mass or rarity? How do we equation that? Where?

Thanks for reading!

A Matter of Levers

The writer Borges once said that simplicity was senseless and that secret and modest complexity was better.

Therefore, if that is true, and you are wanting to change something – in your life or in your Art, here are two choices of levers to explore with.

•    Increase intensity
•    Increase complexity

Imagine you’re a rapper. You’re entering into a very coded universe with its characteristic ways of putting words to music, but you also want to be interesting.  How do you do it?

Pushing the intensity lever can drive-up your style to: Yelling Rap (decibel voice lever), Hyperfast Rap (speed lever) or Deep Loud Metal Rap (“Let’s choose an anvil sound on the beatbox”). It seems a bit too easy and… nobody does that in rap.  Why?

Pushing the complexity lever leads you to dissonance (Bartokian Rap Music), complex rhythms (I imagine a Rite of Spring Rap, don’t you?), or in voice to change the constant monotony (sung parts, tripled voices, sudden incantations, rages preachoïd, etc), or maybe even evolve into a surrealistic, avant-gardist narration.

Of course you could complexify the complexity by pushing the lever of variability of all the above by adding complexity or adding dissonance throughout the track.

OK.  Let’s move away from music levers and into relationship levers.  Imagine your sex life is becoming a bore.  Which lever will you pull?

Intensity Lever?  Stronger?  Faster?  More frequent?  More partners?  More pain?

Complexity Lever?   Subtlety?  More magic? More dimensions?  Funny tools?  Words?

Tools:  It’s fun to learn what levers the great artists chose in their changing periods of life.  Maybe Intensity and Complexity are helpful levers to everyday problems and in the Arts because they both work to revive stagnation and creative blocks. But which one ?