“To begin with, you must teach the unconscious to flow into the channel of writing. Psychologists will forgive us for speaking so airily about “teaching” the unconscious to do this or that. To all intents and purposes that is what happens; but less elegantly and more exactly we might say that the first step towards being a writer is to hitch your unconscious mind to your writing arm.”
Dorothea Brande, Becoming a Writer
Modern Day Jesters Doing It Right
I don’t even know if words can express how happy this makes me. These are the best modern day jesters I’ve ever seen. The ones doing physical comedy, that is. The mental wizards are Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, of course. I don’t think we’ll ever have the perfect combination again of physical and mental humor that marked the jesters of the past. But still.
I think part of what amuses me so much is that she’s so attractive, and he’s…not. He’s not ugly or anything, just very typically geeky-looking. It’s clear that they’ve developed their routine and craft, but also obvious that they care for each other. (It makes me wonder about all of those kings, czars and rulers that wanted husband and wife teams to “create” more jesters for them. But that’s another blog post for another time, I suppose…) She is just so awesome as the straight-man, and they make the acrobatics look effortless.
It’s brilliant and perfect and funny. No words needed. (Except for the extra words that the video is private and I can’t embed it, so you’ll have to watch it on their Vimeo channel…)
Modern Day Jesters in Action
Oh! And the extra words that as far as Die Maiers go, you can even hire them! As long as the massive ballroom in your mansion is tall enough and wide enough, they’re all yours!
Willamette Writers Conference 2014 Registration Open!
Just so you know, registration for the Willamette Writers Conference 2014 (AKA, the best writers conference west of the Mississippi) is open!
And I don’t know if it’s the best west-of-the-Mississippi writers conference for sure or not. It just sounds good. But it’s definitely the best first-weekend-of-August-west-of-the-Mississippi writers conference.
I can’t begin to say how much I love this conference.
Granted, as current president of Willamette Writers, I’m definitely biased. However, I also think of this conference as one of the happiest places on earth, and I thought that years ago.