Alan Fox

Reading.  It’s an activity most of us engage in every day.

I remember being in a car when I was seven as my mom was driving us somewhere.  “Mom, reading is really tiring,” I told her.

She looked at me quizzically.

“Now that I can read, I have to read all of the signs.  And there are so many.”

Mom just smiled.

As I’ve said before, I have a short attention span and I like to be efficient.  That means I finish tasks quickly so that I can move on to the next challenge.  A few of my speed-thinking habits are:

1. Skip it.  This is my best one, and it’s extremely effective.  I typically read the L.A. Times from beginning to end every day, but I skip the stories that don’t interest me.  The best way to save time on a task is not to do it at all.
2. Delegate.  For tasks you want to avoid, find someone else who likes doing it, or whom you can pay to do it, or with whom you can exchange services.  I’ll bet you can find a way to avoid doing many of the tasks you don’t like.  Unless you still live at home with your parents.
3. Stop worrying.  I used to go to sleep every night worrying about tomorrow’s problems.  I finally realized that if I can’t do anything to solve the problem in the moment, there is no reason for me to think about it further.
4. Stick it in you Sub.  Your subconscious, that is.  This is a technique I described in People Tools.  I ask my subconscious to figure it out. It might take my subconscious a little time to come through with a solution, but it is usually very effective.

As far as we know, we each have only one trip through this Disneyland of life.  Let’s enjoy as many rides as we can.  And no, you don’t have to read all the signs!

Enough said.

Alan

The Hollywood Bowl is 100 years old.  I’m 82, and the concert I attended at the Bowl last week featured Diana Ross, who is 78.  I felt right at home.

My father was a professional French horn player. I remember attending concerts at the Bowl in the mid 1940’s when he played with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Diana Ross was the lead singer of the Supremes in the 60’s. At the pinnacle of their success, Berry Gordy, the president of Motown, renamed the group, “Diana Ross and the Supremes.” In 1970, Diana left the group to start her solo career, and they went back to being called The Supremes. At the Hollywood Bowl, Diana was supreme all by herself.  I enjoyed the concert.

Of particular interest to me were the technical aspects of the performance. Usually, a performance of that caliber is technically seamless, but that night there were glitches.

At one point Diana asked to have the stage lights turned down.  Nothing happened.  That was the canary in the coal mine.

Half an hour into the show it was apparent that Diana was having trouble hearing the band.  As with many onstage performers she was relying on earbuds, or some other kind of hearing device. She mentioned she was having a problem twice. But no one appeared on stage to help her out.  She seemed to be able to synchronize her singing with the band just fine but it was clear to me from her demeaner that she was not happy.

The problem with having to perform for the public at that level was aptly summarized by the Russian composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff, who said, “If I don’t practice for one day, I know it.  If I don’t practice for two days, my students know it.  If I don’t practice for three days, everyone knows it.”  He didn’t even mention “technical difficulties.”

Despite the technical difficulties, however, Diana remained entirely professional.  But at the end of the concert, in the middle of a song, she left the stage. The song continued, and we heard her singing, but she never returned.  She didn’t even take a bow.  When the song ended, the lights came up.  That was strange.

Well, Diana, at least you solved one technical difficulty.  You live nearby, so you probably arrived home before I even drove my car out of the parking lot.

Alan

This blog was going to be on a different topic.  But as the title might suggest, the original idea is no longer around. Let me explain…

Last night before I fell asleep, I thought of blending two creative ideas that wouldn’t normally go together.  I knew it would be a great subject to write about for the blog that I was planning to work on first thing in the morning.  You’ll have to take my word on this.  I know that a good idea can vanish within thirty seconds, so I grabbed my iPhone to make a note.  Alas…

Queen Elizabeth, as played by Judi Dench in the movie “Shakespeare in Love,” must walk across a muddy road.  The courtiers wait for her to begin crossing, then realize they are supposed to cover the mud with their coats.  But the Queen has already stepped into the mud.

“Too late, too late,” she says as they scramble around her.

Her words echoed in my mind (she won the Academy Award for her performance) as I wrote “BLOG IDEA,” on my iPhone. Because that was as far as I got.  The idea had already vanished.  It must have been a really good idea, because the better they are the more quickly they seem to disappear.

So here I am, attempting to salvage what would have been an amazing blog by sharing with you the short, sad story of its loss.

I have always needed to write down ideas immediately.  Before my iPhone was a constant companion, I carried a small pad of paper and a pen in my shirt pocket so that I could immediately jot down any idea or poem that came to mind.

Perhaps I should have called this blog “Into the Mist,” or something more literary.  But I’m still pissed at myself, so I’ll go with my first thought.  The poet Allen Ginsberg coined the phrase, “First thought, best thought,” to describe a way of writing that allows one to be spontaneous and unfiltered.  I don’t know if I agree with that, but I do know it doesn’t always apply.  I’ve had a lot of thoughts which are, well, better off filtered.

So, I’m here to lick my literary wound, and distract you with the story of what might have been.

Maybe you’ve heard of others doing something like this.  Perhaps you’ve even done it yourself.  I’m sure there are many great but lost ideas wandering around out there.

Alan