Your elusive creative genius

The author of 'Eat, Pray, Love,' Elizabeth Gilbert has thought long and hard about some big topics. Her fascinations: genius, creativity and how we get in our own way when it comes to both.

Why you should listen

Elizabeth Gilbert faced down a premidlife crisis by doing what we all secretly dream of -- running off for a year. Her travels through Italy, India and Indonesia resulted in the megabestselling and deeply beloved memoir Eat, Pray, Love, about her process of finding herself by leaving home.

She's a longtime magazine writer -- covering music and politics for Spin and GQ -- as well as a novelist and short-story writer. Her books include the story collection Pilgrims, the novel Stern Men (about lobster fishermen in Maine) and a biography of the woodsman Eustace Conway, called The Last American Man. Her work has been the basis for two movies so far (Coyote Ugly, based on her own tale of working at the famously raunchy bar in New York City), and Eat, Pray, Love, with the part of Gilbert played by Julia Roberts. Not bad for a year off.
In 2010, Elizabeth published Committed, a memoir exploring her ambivalent feelings about the institution of marriage. And her 2013 novel, The Signature of All Things, is "a sprawling tale of 19th century botanical exploration."
Gilbert also owns and runs the import shop Two Buttons in Frenchtown, New Jersey.

What others say

“Gilbert is irreverent, hilarious, zestful, courageous, intelligent, and in masterful command of her sparkling prose.” — Booklist

Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talks

19:09

Your elusive creative genius

Posted Feb 2009

7:18

Success, failure and the drive to keep creating 

 

The film: Ízek, imák, szerelmek: http://gloria.tv/media/5FKUEoVa5Ry 

He was born 57 years ago - Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson´s speech at the 35th Grammys, 1993

"My childhood was completely taken away from me. There was no Christmas, there were no birthdays, it was not a normal childhood, nor the normal pleasures of childhood. Those were exchanged for hard work, struggle and pain and eventually material and professional success. But as an awful price, I cannot re-create that part of my life.

However, today, when I create my music, I feel like an instrument of nature. I wonder what delight nature must feel when we open our hearts and express our god-given talents. The sound of approval rolls across the universe, and the whole world abounds in magic, wonder fills our hearts, for what we've glimpsed, for an instant, the playfulness of life. And that's why I love children and learned so much from being around them.

I realised that many of our world's problems today - from the inner city crime, to large scale wars and terrorism, and our overcrowded prisons - are a result of the fact that children have had their childhood stolen from them. The magic, the wonder, the mystery, and the innocence of a child's heart, are the seeds of creativity that will heal the world. I really believe that.

What we need to learn from children isn't childish. Being with them connects us to the deeper wisdom of life, which is everpresent and only ask to believe. They know the way to solutions that lie waiting to be recognised within our own hearts. Today, I would like to thank all the children of the world, including the sick and deprived... I am so sensitive to your pain. (...)"

****

"A gyerekek játékos mosolyukban megmutatják nekem a mindenkiben lakozó Istent. Ezek a gyerekek emlékeztetnek az élet értékeire, különösen a fiatalok, akiket még nem érintett meg a gyűlölet, az előítélet és a kapzsiság. Ma, amikor a világ ennyire zavaros, és bonyolult, sokkal inkább szükségünk van a gyerekekre, mint valaha.

Children show me in their playful smiles the divine in everyone. This simple goodness shines straight from their hearts. Being with them connects us to the deeper wisdom of life. These children are a reminder of the preciousness of all life, especially young lives untouched by hatred, prejudice and greed. Now, when the world is so confused and its problems so complicated, we need our children more than ever. 
Their natural wisdom points the way to solutions that lie waiting to be recognized within our own hearts. Children are the world's foremost idealists and optimists. It is for that reason that 'Heal The World" is organizing the World's Children Congress next year, made up exclusively of delegates, aged 8 to 16. The world desperately needs their innocent perspective on the world's problems. We have to heal our wounded planet of the chaos, despair and senseless destruction we see today. The mission of HTW, my mission, is healing. Pure and simple. To heal the world, we must start by healing our children."

Michael Jackson on a press conference of his new charity organisation "Heal The World" in 1992


Read more: http://www.truemichaeljackson.com/

Robin Williams

Unexpected, shocking and tremendously sad news arrives this afternoon. Oscar-winning actor Robin Williams has passed away today at the age of 63. Early reports indicate that Williams may have taken his own life.

It wasn't long before the movies came calling, and Williams carved out an impressive career with roles both comedic and dramatic, or more often with elements of both. Directors such as Barry Levinson ("Good Morning Vietnam"), Terry Gilliam ("The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen," "The Fisher King"), Steven Spielberg ("Hook," "A.I."), Mark Romanek ("One Hour Photo"), Gus Van Sant ("Good Will Hunting"), Kenneth Branagh ("Dead Again"), Penny Marshall ("Awakenings," "Hamlet"), Christopher Nolan ("Insomnia") and countless others all found different shades of his talent in the work. And even in an animated role, playing the genie in Disney's "Aladdin," Williams' ferocious energy couldn't be contained.

But the actor showed he could turn off the persona and charisma that made him famous, and fearlessly took on darker roles, often in independent productions. He consistently challenged himself through his work, but never completely left behind his comedic skills that won him a devoted audience. And for these efforts he was honored time and again by audiences and the industry, winning an Oscar for "Good Will Hunting" (he was nominated a total of four times), in addition to two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globes, five Grammys and more.

Williams' final roles were in the comedy "Merry Friggin' Christmas" and in the Monty Python animated picture "Absolutely Anything." He had been filming "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb," but there's no word yet on whether he completed his scenes for the movie.

Williams was a drug addict during the '70s and '80s, but had quit. However, he was re-admitted to rehab in 2009 for alcohol addiction, and more recently checked in again last month where he had planned to stay for several weeks.

It's hard to properly summarize Williams' impact, but this video from Peter Weir's "Dead Poets Society" pretty much says it all. Williams will be greatly missed.

Those who worked with him knew him to be a genius and the rarest of talents. After news of his shocking death spread, his friends and professional admirers expressed their love for the man Steve Martin called a "great talent, acting partner, genuine soul."

Robin Williams (1951-2014) Tribute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQrVf71NjyQ


 

Amy Winehouse: the final interview

"I’m quite shy, really," Amy Winehouse told Neil McCormick in March, in what was to be the last interview she gave before she died.

In March this year, I did what turned out to be the last interview with Amy Winehouse. We didn’t talk about drugs, or rehab, or her unhappy love life, or cancelled tours and interrupted recording sessions.
It wasn’t about her well-publicised troubles at all. It was about music, about jazz and singing, the things that really motivated her, the things that made her great.

I was privileged to watch her record a duet with legendary crooner Tony Bennett in Abbey Road studios. It was a magical experience, watching these two great talents sing together, voices wrapping around each other, rising and falling, scatting and blending in jazzy cadences, as they worked up a version of the classic ’Body And Soul’, each take getting better than the last.

Winehouse was obviously nervous, exhibiting the slightly insecure demeanour of a brattish teenager, alternately blasé and sulky. She had run a gauntlet of paparazzi on arrival, and her entourage of stylists, management and record company representatives were worried about the response of their notoriously mercurial charge. Winehouse, however, dismissed concerns with a shrug and “Whatever!”

In mini-dress and patterned cardigan, she looked good, healthier than I had seen her in years, tanned and fuller-figured, big hair sculpted around her striking face. The year before, a producer I know described Winehouse as a write-off, creatively stuck and unable to function for ten minutes without resorting to drugs. The comment had offended her father, Mitch. “She’s not a write off,” he insisted. “She’s a recovering addict.”

Amy's story - 'Amy' tracks singer Winehouse's soaring talent, tragic demise

latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-amy-winehouse-movie-review-20150703-column.html


Singer Amy Winehouse before she performs at the Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan, NY, on March 13, 2007. (Jennifer S. Altman / For The Times)

Before she won six Grammys (including a trio for her massive breakout hit "Rehab"), before she descended into a morass of addiction and public humiliation, before she died of alcohol poisoning at age 27, bravura British songwriter and vocalist Amy Winehouse was simply a young woman with an extraordinary gift for song.

Even as a teenager, producer Salaam Remi says, "she had the stylings of a 65-year-old jazz singer who knew the ropes up and down." Pianist Sam Beste, who accompanied her in those early days, says, "she needed music as if it were a person. She would die for it." Fearless in front of a microphone, she was terrified of only one thing: the prospect of fame.
'How did we let this happen?' The Amy Winehouse question and social science's take on modern fame
'How did we let this happen?' The Amy Winehouse question and social science's take on modern fame

"I don't think I'm going to be at all famous," she said nervously in a radio interview when she was but 20. "I don't think I can handle it. I'd probably go mad."