What I am reading this week 10/6-10/11/2014

Every week, in an attempt to keep the ol' imagination churning out fresh ideas,  I try to read a range of styles and genres from different parts of the media, here are just a few of the gems I will be reading in the coming days:

Who really killed Bugsy Siegel?

An interesting story full of bright little peeks into the sordid history of the recent American West, with a surprise ending

Anthony Bourdain is the Future of Cable News and He Couldn't Care Less. This was a good article with some interesting glimpses into Anthony Bourdain's personal history, a few ideas about what makes Parts Unknown and Ne Reservations so visually engaging, just a taste of the technology used to facilitate those effects, like using a combination of Sony F 3's,  Canon 7D's and Go Pro Hero's to create cinematic journalism unlike anything else currently on TV.

"Justin Timberlake Has a Cold"... I wanted to see how this homage stacked up against the original...the greatest magazine article ever written "Frank Sinatra has a Cold" by one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century Mr. Gay Talese.


The Jewish Gangsters Who Attend Yom Kippur.... I love a good Gangster story, always have ...and probably always will. Speaking of, have you read The Sicialian by Mario Puzo yet?


I am also currently trying to wrap up David Foster Wallace's epic novel Infinite Jest.... on page 866...stay tuned.

This week I listened to a fantastic podcast from the TED Radio Hour about Cultivating Creativity, and although there were numerous insights throughout the episode, one if the most revealing points came when scientists were analyzing the brains of Jazz musicians jamming and noticed that when the musicians were the most creative, one part of their brain was all lot up, while another part of their brain was shitting down...indicative of these performers finding flow was the fact that they literally needed to get out if their own way and then off the part if the brain that focuses in self introspection and self monitoring and let their creative freak flag fly without any internal checks. When that occurred the musicians were in the moment creating beautiful music and free from the judgements of their own inner voices....incredible how science was used to, at least preliminarily, highlight what creativity in action looks like from a physiological standpoint, and how the flow state relates to the biology of our own brains! Basically creativity is something to be worked at and worked at and if you keep working at it hard enough and are always thinking...then sometimes you just might get lucky and your imagination will take all of the miscellaneous pieces of your studies and your efforts and out them together in a uniquely meaningful way that will reverberate throughout the universe....but that doesn't mean you won't need to progress and edit...that's part of the game.