A Re-consideration of Thought
January 24th, 2005This isn’t a stream-of-consciousness post. So I lied. Sorry, I just don’t work that way. I tried a couple times, but I realized that I can’t think and type quickly enough. Plus, I never think entire thoughts all at once. It’s hard enough to think coherent words, much less actual sentences. I guess this is a gift that eludes me.
But more on my improvisation argument: I think it needs revision. Gretchen pointed out to me that my favorite posts of hers tend to be ones where she drunkenly taps away at the keyboard and hits “send”. This isn’t universal — I can think of bad drunken posts and good measured posts on her live journal. However, this is a trend that I cannot deny, so I’ll have to make a quick concession: improvisation does indeed have a place in society. I think my theory that most improvisation is bad still holds some water. However, this might just fall under the category of “Darrell applying his own predispositions universally and making an easy-to-swallow theory out of it”. Because I’m not that great at coming up with greatness on the spot, there must be something wrong with the entire process. So in a way, I guess I said the equivalent of “I’m no good at jai alai, so jai alai isn’t really a sport.” My apologies if that’s what I said.
I stand by my assertion that improv comedy is, by and large, not actual improvisation and quite terrible.
An actual post will come as soon as I can think of one.
-Darrell
January 24th, 2005 at 12:39 pm
Agreed. Very few of the drunken posts contain anything remotely coherent, and the incoherence is not the type of amusing blather that one would find in a William S. Burroughs novel or a Hunter S. Thompson drug tale or a Chris Foree Hobbz.net post. Most of it flat out sucks but seems like a good idea at the time. I think the kicker is the intoxication method–the green goblin is a much better writing tool than the booze. The goblin provides streams of consciousness which are nonsensical but very detailed while the booze creates a bunch of choppy thoughts that leave your head before you are even finished thinking about them. Perhaps the really good improv comes from folks who are able to create long, detailed thoughts very quickly and spit them out as soon as they come into their heads–which would explain why there is so little of it; it isn’t something that most folks are able to do on a regular basis.
-G
January 24th, 2005 at 1:13 pm
I think my own predisposition to assume that people suck can apply to this problem. Most improvisation is terrible because most people are bad at it. Most of my bosses don’t know how to manage because most of my bosses are idiots. We’re not all speaking Chinese, aspiring to become doctors and learning how to do math really well because, thank god, the same rule applies to Chinese people. You see the pattern now I’m sure. Herein lies my only problem with higher education: giving someone an MBA doesn’t make them less of an imbecile, it’s just like adding a coat of paint. You can’t teach improvisation – at least not good improvisation. Can you teach intelligence, analytical thinking and thoughtful prioritization? The knowledge economy may be destined for failure depending on the answer to this question.
And now I’m reluctant to post because I’m not sure I’ve given this enough thought, and also this statement is more an abstract than anything useful. This is why, despite the fact that I can, I never post to Darrell’s site. I never know whether I’ve thought things through enough. I think that I’ve made a decision. I will post my thoughts to the anti-blog, because I really want to, and you will all know that no matter how emphatically I assert my positions, it’s merely for the sake of argument and anyone could change my mind at any given time. Same rule applies to this comment.