Inspiration, the Angel and Olivia Newton John
I want to talk about inspiration. Where it comes from, where it goes, and what to do with it when you have it.
But first, allow me to acknowledge that I missed a blog update. I have been having a bit of writers block, and Wednesday came and went without inspiration. I have also been working though a larger creative block, and these are more than a little related.
I set myself a goal of making three updates a week. This is my rule, that I made for myself, and I have been following it diligently for a month. I even incorporated traveling to Chicago (which may be the inspiration for another post) into my schedule and kept to it, so I am not kicking my own ass too hard over this lapse. Nor do I feel the need to “catch up”. It is one post missed over the course of a month, and I believe I can grant myself that much slack.
I am mostly acknowledging this because a little slack in the creative process seems like a good thing, at least for myself, and I trust you will all be kind enough to grant me my occasional bouts of humanity. There may be lapses in the future, as well, but I will make every effort to stay on target.
As it happened, the writer’s block has become the core of this post, because this is certainly not the first lack of inspiration I have experienced in the course of a large project, and it will not be the last. The trick I learned along the way is to keep at it, and look for that spark of creativity. Protect it and grow it into a flame. And don’t be surprised if you encounter that spark in odd places.
For example, I recently found inspiration in Xanadu. Not the song by Rush, or the poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Coleridge upon which that song is based, but the movie from 1980 starring Olivia Newton-John as a Muse called Kira. Which makes a certain kind of sense, because, you know, she’s a Muse.
Melissa and I attended a “Sing Along” presentation of Xanadu last week, and it was just as ridiculous and beautiful as I remember. But it also contained some food for meditation, as all the best entertainment does.
I do not expect that even half the people reading this are familiar with the movie Xanadu. It was the first film that Olivia Newton-John starred in after Grease, and the first film for which any actress was paid $1,000,000.00. She was at the top of her game, and looks and sounds wonderful throughout.
The soundtrack also featured the music of Electric Light Orchestra. I developed my love for Electric Light Orchestra at the age of six. My grandfather would walk my sister and I to the library, and allow us to check out books. During one of these trips I discovered that I could also check out records. My first record was a telling of The Count of Monte Cristo, which my young mind found very dull. Upon returning it, I decided that a record about spaceships would be much more exciting. So I checked out a copy of the double album “Out of the Blue” by ELO. I played the first few bars of the first song upon returning to my grandparents home, and my grandmother rushed into the room to provide me with headphones, so she didn’t have to be subjected to this odd music. This was my first experience with headphones, and really with rock music aside from snippets on the radio. This was also my first experience of synesthesia. It was literally my first experience of the place where religious ecstasy and music meet. Suffice to say, I love some ELO.
The film Xanadu also features Gene Kelly, in one of his final film roles. While rock music was not a staple in my home growing up, musicals were. Singin’ in the Rain, Brigadoon, and On The Town were all known to me when I first encountered Xanadu. And Gene Kelly was a consummate entertainer.
How could such a collection of talent not be successful? Well, it wasn’t exactly the hit people were expecting. In fact, it was the film that the Golden Raspberries were created to celebrate as the Worst Film of the Year. But my strange little 11 year old brain rather enjoyed it.
The film is all over the map. It has no villain to speak of, other than capitalism, and no real moral to speak of, other than capitalism being good? It is not so much plot as a series of musical number attached by loosely related dialog. It has all the Shakespearean gravitas of an episode of Jim Henson’s The Muppet Show. And I say that with love.
I will not say the film has aged well. Although it is filled with the sort of passion that one might expect from a pre-Aids awareness Hollywood, and the dancers are a beautiful mixture of human types, colors, and gender bending; over the top anti-tropes. It certainly doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test. But visually, I believe this is the future liberals want.
On a more personal note, I am not saying that my Holy Guardian Angel bears any resemblance to the character of Kira, but I am saying that she does represent the archetypal genius that affords a magician the opportunity to course correct over the hills and valleys of earthly life, and there may be some resemblances to the way such an intelligence might manifest itself to me, personally. A more than passing resemblance, if I am being honest. She also has an infuriatingly indirect approach, as one might expect, of answering every question with another question, or open ended statement, that leaves the questioner with more mystery than when the conversation started.
Melissa also imprinted on this film early on, and has some great stories about her childhood love of the music of Xanadu, as it is one of the first vinyl records she ever owned. So before you chastise me for dragging her to this odd celebration of style over substance, I’ll just let you know it was her idea.
We blissfully set out to sing along with the sentimental camp-fest, and something interesting happened. Inspiration, in the form of a conversation about what these roles represent.
The films protagonist is Sonny, played by Michael Beck, from the cult film The Warriors. Sonny is a painter working at a job he hates who quits to do great art. Only to suffer painter’s block.
He encounters a muse, a Greek demi-God of inspiration and the arts called “Kira”. She emerges from a mural he painted in the script, but for some reason this detail is omitted in the film.
She inspires him, not to paint, but to open a club with some rich elderly gentleman he meets on the beach, played by Gene Kelly, and they create Xanadu. Never mind that he was good at painting, something about this club was more important.
There is some glitz, there is some cheese, Zeus says no to their forbidden love, something, something, big musical finish.
So imagine how I was feeling last week, sitting in a theater, soaked in cheese, while wondering what my next project might be, and how I am going to shape my next work of art, to be confronted by this childhood image that obviously set so many of my expectations. It was cool. And weird. And it reminded me that inspiration is where you find it. Keep your eyes open and it grows where you least expect it.
This viewing lead to some conversations. Was Kira asking Sonny to abandon his dream, or find a new one, better suited to him? Was the development of his artistic craft a necessary step to meeting his true destiny? Or was she just some capricious God-Child using him to finish her assignment?
These are deep questions we ask ourselves, when working out how we will exercise our creative genius. And often the skills we develop in one area can lead us in another, unexpected direction. In the end, I can only suggest that excellence is a habit, so bring your best to what you do…and cut yourself a little slack.
Speaking of creative genius, if you factor in my assumptions about the gratuitous illicit substances that must have been employed in drafting this film, and getting it green-lighted by a studio, I can say that it perfectly captures the formula for ekstasis described by Aleister Crowley in Energized Enthusiasm.
Which, like this post, sort of wanders off into the weeds, and finds something cool where you least expected it.
In future posts, I will talk about some other tricks for enticing inspiration back, when it sneaks away in the night. For now, what inspires you?