lightning strikes twice

by Richard Florida

This book is an extensive examination of what makes creative people tick, why they bring vitality to a region, and how creativity can be nurtured and harnessed to ensure our modern cities survive the changes of the twenty first century and thrive beyond that.

I read this at the end of 2005, and have been meaning to write some brief notes on it for about six months. The City Talk of last week has finally got me to do it (albeit while watching World Cup).

Florida starts with “The Creative Age”, which details the realities of society and the workforce in the modern age. The proportion of the workforce involved in creative work has been rising steadily over the last century, and now more and more people make a living from exercising their creative talents, from both the super-creative core to the more general creative class.

Then Florida examines “Work”, what makes people want to work creatively. The top of most IT workers list when it comes to work is to be challenged. Furthermore, the next most important factor is flexibility. The “Horizontal Labor Market” is dissected, with the realisation that people are in tune with the new realities of work and are far more prepared to look at alternative avenues of employment, rather than worshipping the institutions and organisations that have let them down in the past. Its also noted that creative workers are the most time poor.
We then move on past work to look at the leisure pursuits of the creative class, where life is more and more seen as a chance for experience rather than possessions.

Florida’s look into Community and the creative class is interesting in the context of the City Talk from last week. Creative people love to be around other creatives. Furthermore, they’re not interested in typical pursuits such as professional sports, but rather prefer things like mountain biking. Here are what creatives look for in ‘Place’: employment opportunities, lifestyle, social interaction, diversity, authenticity, identity and ‘quality’.

Linking creative force with economic force, Florida outlines the three Ts of economic development: Technology, Talent and Tolerance. Then in later chapters he details approaches for building creative communities, building on the ideas of the 3T’s. Urbanisation, universities as creative hubs and having a great “people climate” (strategy for attracting and retaining creative people).

Finally, Florida implores the creative class to continue. To engage society and each other and to become a more cohesive and responsible group, with the important idea that “personal identity requires a well defined notion of how one relates to others.”

An interesting and much more detailed book than the standard popular demographic books, the goal of this book is to inform and educate about the new creative class and how societies must change to survive and thrive.

The City Of Sydney put on an open talk by two great Australian urban design experts on Tuesday June 20th in the City Recital Hall. Over an hour and a half, Ken Maher and Rob Adams spoke about the foundation of great cities. Ken spoke specifically in relation to Sydney, including half a dozen propositions about how to improve our city, such as:

• creating and nurturing communities such as Surry Hills, Pyrmont and Darlinghurst
• linking these communities via transport
• creating a traffic free city
• light rail through the city and over the bridge

Rob spoke about how they had revitalised Melbourne city and made it into the friendly and cultural place it is today, from rather bleak beginnings in the mid 80s. This included how they went about integrating heritage and new architecture, to the encouragement of city living and a vibrant “cafe society”.

Both speakers were very interesting, in different ways, and the MC Adam Spencer was engaging and is clearly very intelligent as well as funny. I left this feeling the vitality of the city and encouraged that a packed house of around 800 felt the same.

starring Heath Ledger, Johnny Knoxville and that blonde kid from Elephant

A decent if very “MTVed” summary of the explosion of skateboarding the first time around in the late 70s. I got into skateboarding in the late 80s, so I was very familiar with all the characters and looks from reading the magazines and books. Tony Alva, Stacey Peralta (of Bones Brigade fame — I had the Bones Brigade skeleton pushing through the back of my homework diary in year 7.) It felt like a little glimpse into my imagined childhood (how I dreamt of it when I was a little skater, not how it actually was). Anyway, like with most subcultures, a few talents can really push it over the edge, and these kids had talent and attitude.  Of course the story evolves into one of strained friendships and exploitation as well.
A fun film. 7/10

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal

Follows the trip through the marine corp of Anthony Swofford (played by Jake G).  It’s about the emotional turmoil of being a soldier, and the changing face of war in the late twentieth century.

Swofford falls into being a marine mostly through lack of options.  In doing so he leaves behind his girlfriend, which appears to be the only person he really cares about aside from himself.  After training, war breaks out in Iraq, and Swofford and his elite sniper buddies are sent to the middle east.  What follows is a chronicle of interminable boredom, where each day is more about short bouts of killing preparation followed by lots and lots of downtime.  Sounds boring for a movie, but its actually rather interesting, and makes many good points about the individual in relation to the greater group.

A good but not great film, worth 7/10

Great quote from Daniel Gilbert, as noted by Dave Pollard:

Some people…tell you sternly that you should live every minute of your life as though it were your last, which only goes to show some people would spend their final ten minutes giving other people dumb advice.

Dave Pollard writes fascinating articles about humanity and the world — the only problem is he writes an essay almost every other day, and I have trouble keeping up with the volume of stuff he churns out.

starring Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish

This is the love story of Dan the wayward poet and his beautiful girlfriend Candy.  He leads her into the world of heroin and the life spirals downward from heaven to earth and into hell.  A beautifully shot and crafted film, if you didn’t think Heath Ledger was the real thing after brokeback mountain then this will nail it for you.  He is amazing.  I think I’ll see anything he is in now automatically.  Abbie Cornish is great too.  In Somersault she was a little annoying, but now she has really grown up as an actress.

In some ways a traumatic film, and I still think the heroin world is a bit past now (maybe a film about ice would have been more relevant these days.)  But great anway.

8/10

I usually steer well clear of anything with a byline of “written and directed by and also starring”, as they are usually cliched indy coming of age films by too earnest actors who are so enamoured of themselves they think they can also direct and write (see Garden State for instance, or rather don’t see it, its terrible).

And in many ways this film is the same, but somehow it does manage to pull it off.  I finished watching this story of a lonely artist, a separated shoe salesman and his kids, a pair of curious teenage girls and more, feeling a little more curious about everything around me.  A touching film that only just escapes the “written, directed and starring trap”.

7/10

A fascinating insight into the first year in the NBA for Yao Ming, the 7 foot 5 inch tall basketballer fcrom China.  I devour anything NBA related, but this was all new to me.  I knew Yao had it tough coming from China both culturally and physically, but watching how much he had to deal with was another thing completely.  It was just a relentless schedule.  And Yao is such a quite and polite young man, I really felt for him.

In the end you can’t help but admire how he took everything in his stride and never complained.  Count me as a Yao fan.

A bonus was seeing some great Barkley moments that we don’t get to see here on Aussie television.

The first 60 to 70 minutes of this film were dynamite. Vince Vaughan and Owen Wilson were totally on form and playing off each other. Plenty of laughs and true moments.

But then it went all wrong, and the last twenty to thirty minutes were RUBBISH. I bet the reason it went wrong was someone at “the studio” decided things would have to end a certain way, and changed the script. It got terribly cliched and corny. A damn shame. But I watched the first hour again it was that good!

Will Ferrel has a great cameo in this as well.

6 / 10 (but could have been an 8 with the right last third)

A sprawling and rambling breakdown of the collapse of Enron. The film is an interesting story about how power and greed can corrupt anyone, but I had more than a little trouble following the central themes, as the narrative jumped all over the place. Still, hearing the voices of Enron traders giggle while California was under the constant threat of blackouts was chilling and a good reminder of how the market can fail the people, making this a worthwhile film to watch.

6/10