This'll be short and sweet.....

like me. So, I've been told that I have readers...yeah me. and that I am passionate. thank you. Yes, I will say things out loud that others may be thinking.
I also do not have a 100% cheery outlook...I see things as they are...and how they could be........

so I hope some love Neko because she is not 100% cheery and her songs are hauntingly macabre and strangely uplifting because they are about humanity and the natural world...it's not always a pretty sight, and we must. look.

so. Neko Case. Pretty nice eh? I didn't go because I don't go to big concerts anymore (much). Here's my 2 favorite vids on YouTube, baby.





Well, work continues on my street...It will never ever end...
from Morgan's Brain post (via feedtacoma)...got me thinking about this:
from wikipedia's article on Florida's Creative Class theory....(in bold)

The Creative Class is a class of workers whose job is to create meaningful new forms (2002). The Creative Class is composed of scientists and engineers, university professors, poets and architects.

The Super-Creative Core is considered innovative, creating commercial products and consumer goods. Their primary job function is to be creative and innovative. “Along with problem solving, their work may entail problem finding” (Florida, 2002, p.69).

The Creative Class also “includes people in design, education, arts, music and entertainment, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and/or creative content” (Florida, 2006, p.8).

Their designs are widely transferable and useful on a broad scale, as with products that are sold and used on a wide scale. Another sector of the Creative Class includes those positions which are knowledge intensive, these careers usually require a high degree of formal education (2002). Examples of this sector are health professionals and business management, who are considered to be a part of the sub-group called Creative Professionals.

back to the Super-Creative Core theory....
Their primary job function is to be creative and innovative. “Along with problem solving, their work may entail problem finding” (Florida, 2002, p.69)
Even though the Creative Class has been around for centuries........

well, yes of course...I'll take issue with the business management folks...they better get their head out of their asses because I don't yet see much change in corporate culture that embraces intelligence...yet...I see glimmers of hope in small business...ala Paul Hawken's theories, for example....

Additional to these two main groups of creative people, the usually much smaller group of Bohemians are also included in the creative class.

ah yes, Bohemians. The sub sub culture that is entirely misunderstood and ripped off. We're creating all the time. The air we breathe is different. We do our own thing, man, and dip our toes in the common culture to test for love/hate. But we mostly watch our ideas get co-opted. There is some satisfaction knowing that trends and general enlightenment start with us.

Here's where bohemia culture in the most modern times has been co-opted and then moved into mainstream culture....just a few examples from the last 50 years....

*Wearing of work clothes as a fashion statement..Denim/Painters pants/work boots...
*Home gardening, once the hobby of the homemaker and immigrant is now Big Time!
*Organic foods, and slower lifestyles, once the purvey of back-to-nature types of Rousseauian and 20's boho Back To The Land movement that spawned Hippies and Diggers and Flower Children....
*Poetry/Open Mike/Indie culture have arisen into mainstream because of co-option by corporations that are empty vessels of profit-obsession...

well, there's a few to chew on.
Me, I'm gonna go cut up some t-shirts and creatively re-fashion them into something new ....I started doing that about 40 years ago (yikes!) and selling my wares on the streets of San Francisco, in my high school, and on and on and so forth.

Florida may have flaws in his theories, but I think his detractors don't know boo about creativity...and how it is nurtured. It isn't nurtured by gentrification!
The fact that the most creative group of people in Tacoma have long congregated around the Broadway/St. Helens/7th -9th street area...and are now being gentrified out...is a perfect example of the co-option I was talking about.

I still have to stare at 505 Broadway and those lions (?) and the FAKE PEOPLE in the windows.

FAKE PEOPLE. In the windows.
and read the sign in the window of the condo building...
warm and fuzzy huh?
You just can't make this shit up.