October 10, 2010: Nina Simone - Don't Smoke in Bed

Nina Simone - Don't Smoke in Bed: youtube.com/watch?v=mfpwaq9R40c

I once had a painter friend who passed on to me a philosophy regarding her work in painting. When she was working on a piece she would eventually reach a point where the work would feel done or else she would get stuck and wouldn't know what to do next, where to go. At that point she would walk away, go have a cigarette, come back to the work and look at it fresh. And this philosophy works in theory, and often in practice, but it depends on the application of the practice. Sometimes one can walk away for too long and lose everything. It's careful to know where your priorities, where your allegiances, lay.

And I heard Nick Cave impart a similar philosophy regarding his work; when he releases an album, goes on tour, he will come back feeling burnt out from the music. So he will write a book. Or he'll write a screenplay. This other form of work will allow his musical passions to sit and stir, to keep from going stagnant. It all comes back eventually and if it doesn't there's still this whole other body of work, of passions.

I've been working jobs a lot lately. It's difficult. It's not difficult because of the work for it's easy work and I have no passions in it, it's just for the money. Which is what makes it difficult; the lack of passions in my jobs can drain the passions for my work. I cannot make money through artistic endeavors though they fill my actions always. So, in order to eat and to have a room to sleep in, to write in, to study in, I must have money to provide these means. It's a problem to which I will likely never find a solution; I'll always be a certain kind of poor. But I come from a hard working family and I get through it. When I'm not at my job I'm working. And as much as I love my life, I sometimes feel a need to walk away, have a cigarette and come back to it.

Some people call this "vacation." But I don't vacation. Even the trips I've taken that were viewed as a sort of vacation have been full of research, work, experience, a collection of faces for to write, for composition. I can't vacation.

I could always take up smoking.