Month: March 2017

The Price To Not Pay Is Steep (Health)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Holistic health has been on my mind as of late dear readers.

 

You see, I have this theory that there is a strong connection between art, healing, and health. And I think holistic health holds the key to that connection.

Holistic health is a type of healing process which considers the whole human being and not just the body parts and/or symptoms. As we strive towards optimal health and wellness, considerations of the body, mind, spirit, and emotions are all relevant.

I like to believe that we can address each of those aspects of ourselves with some basic activities. For the body, there is exercise. When it comes to the mind, reading things and a variety of things covers it off, emotions are founded in both positive relationships and pursuing our passions, but spirit is the most difficult to address.

To put it simply, I think that art is key to addressing the spirit, and if we ignore this part of ourselves, we suffer all the more for it.

Medicine For The Heart

 

The interesting part of this theory is that there is evidence out there which suggests a healing connection between art and the spirit, but it is not given nearly as much research as other disciplines, but it certainly can provide value. The point we need to consider most in this discussion is that each of us is drawn to different forms of art, so what heals me might not heal you as easily. And I think that has to do with our preferred learning styles.

  • Visual learners prefer two dimensional forms of art like drawing, painting, and photography.
  • Kinesthetic learners should look towards performance arts, like dance, magic, and theatre.
  • Auditory learners are best served by music, writing, and narration.

Now, outlining the reasons why I think art has the power to heal our spirit will take up far more time than a single post can give, so rather than diving deeply into it today, I will share a few of my favourite videos on the power of art for affecting the spirit.

Namely this one.

 

And also this one.

And definitely this one.

Health Matters

If it hasn’t been made clear yet, the aim of this post is to address health as it relates to the OECD index, making this the eighth entry in the Wellness Factors of Life series inspired by Postconsumers.

Artists matter, and I know in my heart of hearts that I will always advocate for the arts, no matter where I am or whatever the context that I am making the argument in. But timotheories isn’t just about me, it’s also about providing you with the resources you need to fight the good fight. As art makers, art facilitators, art collectors, and art enthusiasts, each of us has a responsibility to share with the world the merits of working on creative projects, from economics, to health, to politics, to entertainment, you creative cuties know that art has the power to heal. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

The spirit is the key in all of this.

 

theories Summarized

It is absolutely essential to reconsider the notion of the starving artist, and start to consider the notion of the starving souls who do not support the arts nor make room for creativity within their lives, it takes time to establish yourself creatively, no different than any other specialization.

Doctors, engineers, lawyers, scientists, politicians, professors, and teachers, I’m looking squarely at you.

So let’s invest in art, because it’s good for us.

And yes, I am theoried out for the night, so I’m gonna settle into bed with a good book, after a night of exercise, writing, and communicating with my lovely girlfriend, and know that I met all of my wellness needs. Another day, another theory satisfied.

Tim!

Post Up A Post (Fences review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Some people build fences to keep people out, and other people build fences to keep people in.

That’s what Bono says to himself as things come to a head between his friend Troy, Troy’s son Cory, and Troy’s wife Rose. It’s a beautiful description of how I felt watching this movie.

 

 

 

Fences (2016)

Cast: Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Stephen Henderson, Jovan Adepo, Russell Hornsby, Mykelti Williamson, Saniyya Sidney
Director: Denzel Washington
released on blu-ray March 14, 2017
******** 8/10

IMDB: 7.3
Rotten Tomatoes: 93%, Audience Score 78%
The Guardian: ****/*****

 

Denzel Washington is an American actor, director and producer.

He is well known for his portrayals of all kinds of men on screen for almost forty years. Some of best known roles are in the films Glory, Malcolm X, Philadelphia, The Bone Collector, Remember The Titans, Training Day, John Q., American Gangster, Flight, and many others.

Fences is Washington’s third outing in the director chair, after Antwone Fisher and The Great Debaters.

But this is the first time that Denzel has been up for both Best Actor and Best Director during the Oscars. And I now understand why he felt robbed when Casey Affleck took it home. I’m not going to spend a bunch of time outlining the story here, because I think it speaks for itself, that, and IMDB has a handy little summary already written up by Claudio Carvalho –

In the 50’s, in Pittsburgh, the bitter and proud fifty-three year-old garbageman Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) lives a simple life in a poor neighborhood with his wife Rose Maxson (Viola Davis), his teenage son Cory (Jovan Adepo), who is an amateur football player, and his brother Gabriel “Gabe” (Mykelti Williamson) that is an insane man after losing part of his skull in the war. His best friend is Jim Bono (Stephen Henderson), who works with him, and his estranged thirty-four year-old son Lyons (Russell Hornsby) is married and tries to survive as a musician with financial difficulties. Troy is a frustrated man since he was too old to become a professional baseball player when the leagues began to admit black athletes. He refuses to receive the recruiter of a college and consequently does not allow Cory to join college. The tension increases in his family when he confesses to Rose that he has a mistress that is pregnant. Meanwhile he has been building a fence in the limits of his real estate.

Pros: Viola Davis is at the centre of this story, and her performance outshines Washington, but only slightly, and that is impressive. The drama of this story builds ever so slowly, but once the second and third acts arrive, you cannot imagine anything different happening.

Cons: Through all of the excellent performances and excellent story adaptation, it can be challenging to see this as anything other than a well documented stage play.

Runtime: 2 hours 19 minutes

Points of Interest: This was August Wilson’s first ever adaptation of one of his own plays, and he insisted it be directed by an African-American. This is also the second time Viola and Washington have portrayed these roles. The first time being in 2010.

This is a very moving and realistic portrayal of working class life, and I suspect it does an even better story of depicting what black people STILL experience in the way of prejudice while going through the same life problems everybody else has to. We watch Troy start out as an admirable family man, and are suddenly shocked to learn he has been less than stellar in recent years.

This is a moving drama which could apply to anybody, but the cultural references are what distinguish it and make it something to acknowledge people of black culture without gentrifying and generalizing them.

theories Summarized

In short, I think August Wilson would be proud to see his play adapted for the big screen finally. But only time will tell if this story becomes part of history or remains as a daily portrait. Either way, I think Washington could easily have gotten the oscar, but that’s just a theory!

Tim!

Your Stoicism Entryway (The Shins, Heartworms review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

 

Start each day knowing that the world is full of indifference, ill-will, selfishness, and a ton of other vices. Next, accept that each of us is affected by our environment, and not effected by it.

How we perceive the thing is much more powerful then the thing itself. The world will always be this way, which is why a certain kind of music could be popular ten years ago, and yet feel less interesting now.

 

 

 

The Shins – Heartworms
released March 10, 2017
******* 7/10

 

The Shins are an American indie rock band that have been playing together for just over 20 years. I own the bands first two records Oh, Inverted World (2001) and Chutes Too Narrow (2003) which I promptly picked up after listening to New Slang during it’s brief moment of spotlight in the film Garden State.

A few years later the dudes put together their third album Wincing the Night Away, which was a huge commercial success, and even earned them a Grammy nod.

I missed them when their fourth album came out, but I didn’t think to call or write, so I don’t have any strong feelings about it either way, but I can say most assuredly that The Shins fifth offering, Heartworms, is just as good as I was hoping it would be. And maybe a bit too comfortable for convention.

Does anyone remember when indie rock was the next big thing?

Death Cab For Cutie, Stars, Feist, Arcade Fire, The Strokes, Modest Mouse, Vampire Weekend, The Killers, et. al.

These were our champions in the 2000s, and The Shins were right at the centre of it all. Belle and Sebastian, The Black Keys, and Weezer too. Actually, I could probably list another twenty bands pretty quickly, but my point is this, when we look back in another ten years, people will be emulating the looks of these bands, and karaoking hard to their sweet tunes.

Sure indie rock has been around since the 1980s, (read: The Smiths), but The Shins are a picture perfect example of the sound captured at the height of it’s popularity. And Heartworms is no exception.

Which is probably why James Mercer dumped all of his bandmates in favour of something new on the last album. And then owned it fully for this outing. Name for You starts things off right with a higher note then we’re used to, but he doesn’t discard that tempo and brings it back a short one song later in Painting a Hole. We get excited listening to the lyrics while the instrumentation keeps things on track.

Cherry Hearts feels like it could be a late addition to the Sixteen Candles soundtrack or inside a more current addition in the movie Sing Street.

Fantasy Island is just good fun. And frankly I could make little anecdotes about each song along the way, which is how I feel that Mercer tackled this album from the outset. And that’s where it’s not quite punchy enough, it feels like each song was both captured in a moment and painstakingly crafted to sound that way. But thematically it can be a challenge to accept this as another other than a solo project finally realized in full. The Shins are James Mercer, and James Mercer is The Shins, good or bad.

 

 

 

Indie rock changed the game. Not in the sense that it forced anything political or social to happen, but that we collectively agreed that it was good music for a time, and now we are experiencing a shift away from thoughtful and whispy lyrics, saturated by striped down instrumentation, and heading back towards the glitz and glamour of the pop music. And that’s okay.

While that doesn’t mean that The Shins are less interesting, only that the larger public feel differently, I do agree that Mercer has run the course on some of his ideas, exploring things more fully is good, but where is the broader message at the centre of it all? Where is the stoicism?

That’s the theory I want to hear.

Tim!

The Final Frontier (Appeal To Logic, Emotions, Ethics)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

I think it was about a month ago, or it could also be four weeks ago if you prefer, that I started to address a complex topic about logic, emotion and reason. I began this investigation with the intent of fleshing out the details of what a creative passion should look like on paper (read:artist statement) and using my own artistic practice as a backdrop in the means of an explanation.

At the time I promised I would come back with a series of posts outlining my theories on how to accomplish this.

And so here we are.

It Is Only Logical

This stimulating topic we’re on is the three modes of persuasion, and sometimes known as ethical strategies or rhetorical appeals. Aristotle posited that the best types of persuasion are clearly demonstrated. The ways that we accomplish a successful persuasion are by showcasing good character through credibility (ethics), stirring up feelings (emotions), and proving a truth (logic).

So if we want to be successful artists, writers, musicians, et. al., then we have to build a proper case for what we do for a living, that way whenever we are approached by a stranger, and we want to leave a good impression, we can put together the best elevator pitch ever crafted.

After all, you care about your art right? You know that your unique voice needs to be expressed and the best way to accomplish that is by gaining positive attention and proper acknowledgment. And of course, you want to do it in a way that is authentic, unfiltered and real.

Thusly I have given you your first example of using the three modes of persuasion. And through the lens of logic.

A Logical Decision? Probably. But The Right One?

Now I do have to consider that the best way to establish this artist statement for yourself can be overwhelming, and given that we are are going to be spending a far amount of time going over this, I want to make it very clear what’s at stake here. Your integrity for one.

People are most like to identify with someone who looks like and talk like them. But this character needs to be trustworthy too. In films and television, this is why the lead character always has a strong reputation with the authority to back it up. If we look for characterizations of ETHOS we can quickly identify people like Dexter Morgan from the tv show Dexter, who has clear motivations, an a stong demonstration of his skilset, and because we experience his thoughts and feelings, it humanizes him and makes him seem like a “normal guy.”

But that’s kind of a creepy example, and I think I can do it one better.

Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy is the chief medical officer on the Star Trek Enterprise, he is a fourth-wall breaker when the other characters are making strong decisions. He serves as a moral compass for the trio of main characters by talking Kirk off the ledge and challenging Spock’s dry and cold approach to everything.

He is more human than Spock and less of a hero than Kirk, and he is most definitely an authority figure on the ship, who everyone defers to. One of the best quotes attributed to McCoy is the old “Dammit Jim, I’m a doctor, not a [insert job of the moment]”.

I Don’t Believe In No-Win Scenarios

Without an emotional core, we have nothing to go on!

People don’t connect only to logic, nor do they respond to an authority figure just because they have a title, it’s the emotions that impassion a message and give a sense of humanity to whatever the topic at hand.

You know that because I’m fighting the good fight for all artists out there, and that I struggle with doubts but can carry on through passion and sheer force of will that I will make timotheories work and work for you. It’s about justice, imagination and painting a picture of a bright future for everyone that wants to make something beautiful.

PATHOS is for all of the artists who have a fire inside and will never give up. Or surrender.

theories Summarized

There is no way that well go over this all in two posts my friends, just I didn’t think it would happen in one post. But I do hope against hope that this is starting to come together for you.

In case the basic principles of the three modes of persuasion are not clear just yet, I’ll embellish on that Star Trek reference some more. LOGOS is probably the most obvious example and demonstrated through Spock, while I’ve just demonstrated that McCoy is ETHOS, and lastly Kirk is PATHOS. Kirk being the most impulsive and emotive of the three, he takes risks and always acts from instinct, experiences, and a sense of responsibility.

And as I’ve mentioned already, I have a pretty cool theory about how you can take the lessons from those three patron saints of Star Trek and apply their modes of thinking to your own work. But I need to power down for the night creative cuties. These theories don’t running on neverending battery.  At least not yet anyway.

Tim!

Someone Is Feeling Salty (National Nutrition Month)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Nutrition is important to me. It should be to you too.

And here’s why.

According to pretty much every nutritionist and health professional ever, food is vital for us to live because it provides us with nutrients. Nutrients are essential for every day life because they give us energy and good health (when taken in the correct quantities and varieties). If you pick the right foods, you can boost your happiness, get better mental functions, and maintain a healthy body weight. But that’s not all, nutrients also help with prevention and treatment of illnesses.

Some foods are better at supplying energy (carbohydrates, proteins, fat) while others are better at regulating our bodily functions (vitamins, minerals, water).

Staple foods like rice, wheat, potatoes and plantains are relatively cheap and supply energy with good regularity. I’ll call out protein in particular, because it is needed to build, maintain and repair muscle, blood, skin and bones and other tissues and organs in the body. Because good nutrition is important in leading a healthy lifestyle your diet is key to this end; when combined with physical activity a lot more can be accomplished to keep the engine running, so to speak.

Now with all of that shared, eating a varied, well-balanced diet is no simple task. It means eating a variety of foods daily AND in recommended amounts. On top of that, different foods provide different types and volumes of nutrients. Which is frustrating to investigate, and that’s putting it simply.

Salt of the Earth

You’re probably wondering why I even mention this, because this is a creativity and arts based blog.

But the harsh reality is that we too as creative types need all the support we can get. It’s really easy to fall into bad health habits, eating quick and easy to prepare foods that provide little to no health benefits. Or worse, buying from the drive-thru. Once you get into a cycle of bad health, it can be difficult to climb out of it. Believe me when I say that I STILL struggle with this one.

Fortunately for me and for you, it’s National Nutrition Month, which means that there is a bunch of literature out there right now which we can all take advantage of and better ourselves with. You absolutely need to eat right for your lifestyle because there is no one correct diet for everyone. This article covers the essentials rather well, but if you don’t want to spend the time rooting through 3500+ words right now, I’ll summarize my thoughts with short list of tips and tricks now

  1. eat lots of different fruit and vegetables. cooked or raw depending on your needs. (7-10 servings a day)
  2. whole grains are not the enemy. whole grains have fibre and are not the same as white bread or pasta. (wild rice, quinoa, oatmeal, hulled barley)
  3. protein, protein, protein. This is so important I’m putting it in the middle. Eat fish, beans and lentils, dairy and lean meats EVERY SINGLE DAY to get your daily protein (between 45-60 grams, based on weight)
  4. sugar definitely is the enemy, especially in drinks. unsweetened coffee, tea, tea or milk for beverages are best. fruit juice has almost as much sugar as soda
  5. say no to processed food. if its not from the ground, walks around or flies, its no bon.

I’ll leave you with this timely thought for now. It doesn’t matter what you change, only that you make the change yourself and from within. I hope you have an excellent weekend creative cuties, no more theories from me.

I’ll see you on Sunday with an updated LOGO(s).

Tim!