Amateur Hour
The things I get paid for are boring. Let's do something else!
Fuck, I love footnotes. I could foist footnotes on you fuckers all friggin day.
A friend once portrayed me as a perfectionist. I laughed, heartily. I certainly can be perfectly or partially paralysed by my attempts to pick the perfect choice (or to organise the optimal outcome). Witness my attempt to pick one camping site from the many availible options… Good grief, this may take a while. I have a patient partner.
I do like discovering and experiencing fine and rich things: wine, food, music, nature; seeking out the rare and perfect in the nooks and crannies of the world can give me great joy. I may, as well, have a tendency to prefer things to be just so. But perfect? No thank you, that is really hard, far more work than I am willing to do. I just become easily interested in things, and there are many interesting things indeed!
Experts and expertise seem to be everywhere nowadays, more important and in vogue than ever. We must follow them, listen to them, demand they create our policies, maybe even think our thoughts1. We are also surrounded by an incredible amount of ‘expertly’ produced content. For any skill we might attempt, there is a video out there of a six year old that could put our lifelong efforts to shame. Talking about a topic or trying to demonstrate a skill with interest and passion can often lead others to believe you must be an expert. Shit! Do I need credentials for this? Whatever the hells is that about? There is a whole world between keen interest and expertise. We can be passionate amateurs anywhere in between.
It can be extremely exceptional to experience an artist at the height of their power and expertise; this is perfect and awesome to behold. But these professionals are rare, busy, and not always available. Do not forget that while we certainly can enjoy their excellence (exuberantly even), we can also create our own experiences and share them with others.
Reading this or earlier essays, it is evident that I am no professional2. And so? I like reading. I like words, play, patterns, puns, meanings, symbols, thinking about things, and trying to organise my thoughts. I like writing. Why not just do it?
I play guitar. ‘Guitarist’ would be a stretch. I never practise my instrument, I know no scales or theory. I don’t even know the notes on the fingerboard much beyond the basics3. My wife can sing. She’s good, but she’s never done it for money4. While we are not beginners (both of us took full advantage of the music programs in our respective high schools5), we spent years without making music much at all before we met each other. We started playing folk songs from our couch for no one but ourselves. It feels good. Great, actually.
One day, I suggested we practice up some songs that we particularly enjoy, and put on a concert for our friends. My wife asks, quite unconvinced: would anyone actually want to hear us play?’ She has a pure and beautiful voice that only becomes more lovely when practised. I really enjoy giving a song enough attention to get deep into those nooks and crannies, to make it feel just so. Why not share what we can do? And so, I reply: yes, I think we can make it worth their while.
My wife is now convinced6. This sharing of emotion and expression through music, an exchange that can make people cry, it must be convincing. We’ve done a number of little living room concerts, and also performed at every wedding we’ve ever attended7. Preparing a set, performing the music just so (or thereabouts…) also feels great. To get those nooks and crannies out there, to get the details detailed, to let feeling free… you can really get to people, and cause them feel real joy. To work one’s will upon the very air around us all to create something beautiful where there was nothing before… this is pure magic!8
Not everyone wants to perform. Yet even a voyeur can be a secret part of the show. Being engaged, affected, or visibly moved by another’s art is a little performance all its own. But maybe you have a little art that’s yours alone? Why not polish it up till it shines just so, and then put on a little show? At your best (or thereabouts) you may be hard to resist. Not convinced you can reach the lofty bar of beautiful? Remember what they say about where the beautiful finds its home. A passionate amateur is worth a look, and can be a fine thing to behold.
Even experts are not always perfect. Dropping the expectation that passion requires expertise can also help smooth the professional performer’s path to perfection9. Lauren O’Connell, an artist I greatly admire, is a true expert of their craft. Their studio album Details is an experience of mind-blowing perfection (more on this another day) for me, without question a work of pure professionalism. Yet Lauren talks with feeling about the freedom that their Patreon audience provides:
I’ve noticed that having this space with y’all frees up my creative self to play with the process more. If I start to worry that the weird or lo-fi thing I’m making might be misunderstood or fall short of what “people” expect (whatever that means), I get to remind myself that no matter what, I have this little community of folks on Patreon who get what I do, will appreciate whatever I make, and would support me through any experimental woes. But when I can be at peace with potential missteps, I usually feel great about what I make! That’s where the good stuff comes from!10
Your art might not be a performance art that can be polished. I can get right poetic about wine, even though what I know about wine extends very little beyond the method that supplies me with a lot of wine I really like.11 It is, however, very easy for me to share this poetry with others. I practice yoga (daily on some days, a bit less on others), and given the years I’ve been working with one incredible teacher from a wise and precise tradition, I could easily have expertise. I remain an amateur, but I have been able to share my experience in a way that others have found useful within their own practice.
If you have passion for anything at all, skip the certification and all other gated pretendtions.12 Share it, speak it, practice it, perform it, do it. Share your joy, prove the impossible and create something from nothing!
A couple amateurs
A quick and dirty recording of this Townes Van Zandt song we love… it seems simple and trite but gets more interesting the more we play/hear it. Townes’ songwriting blows my fucking mind (more on this later).
An alliterative awesomeness
Fuck, I could watch the creative king Keeso killing it at alphabet aerobics13 all goddaaamn afternoon (again and again)!
Experts say… This phrase rarely precedes anything beyond a bullshit opinion from filtered folk who like to hear their mouths move. Actual experts will talk your face off about the assumptions underlying their conclusions and the known and unknown uncertainties of a subject they have studied closely enough to reveal countless complexities.
If I had a nickel for every comma I’ve removed, I could pay someone to fix the rest of my grammar.
A professional musician told me learning the fingerboard is the most important thing around 23 years ago. Maybe I’ll get to it soon.
Ahem. It’s true! Just one of many things I appreciates about her. She’s real good at a lot of things no one has ever paid her to do.
OK, full disclosure, I’ve been paid to play music. I spent a couple of high school summers in the pit band (2-3 persons) of the local summerstock theatre. The band leader spent the whole of each summer repeatedly misplacing my union membership documents (high school students are a bit cheaper that actual pros). It was fun, but not a good deal of expertise is generated by playing Ice Cream, Ice Cream over and over (and over) again.
Convinced wife, creative life? Possibly the aphoristic remains outside my expertise.
Three in total (including our own), but this is still technically true and is the right way to tell this story.
Indulge me, I’m an amateur with an inexpertly concealed streak of romantic notions wide as half the sky. If I turn purple and a get a wee bit florid, this is just natural.
Yes, I like alliteration all too much. I’m no Humbert Humbert (I’m so glad that’s been cleared up), but I am having fun. If you would prefer an expert written treatment of this device and Lolita is not your thing, check out Shirley Hazzard. My favourite author, a master manipulator of words. She has created so many marvellous moments within my mind with her magnificent prose.
Post(2021-06-18) from Lauren’s Patreon. Of course you’d have to pay them to see it!
Natural wine. They put grapes in it, not other things. Wine is often made with standard scientific procedure: first one kills everything, then adds a bunch of stuff that is not grapes to the grape juice. Crazy, but true. If red wine gives you a headache, unmanipulated wine is worth looking into. I can drink way more of this stuff without suffering so much.
One must be quite clever if one can make up words on the spot. Expert at last! Let’s not talk of that penetrating poetry many four year olds can pull out with no pretension at all.
Mad respect to our lineage of teachers: