The ability on a camera-laden set to inhabit a character without a twitch of distraction or preoccupation or visible hint of the internally or externally irrelevant is a scary but brilliant feat.
Ordinary people cannot do it. But I have seen great actors do it even at cocktail receptions full of cell phones. In a world where major writers have announced that they cannot focus on their work without extracting or blocking the modems in their laptops, this kind of thespian concentration is worth noting. (One thinks of the writer Anne Lamott’s remark on her own maturing undistractibility: “I used to not be able to work if there were dishes in the sink,” she has said. “Then I had a child and now I can work if there is a corpse in the sink.”)
Tag: focus
Maria Popova’s Beautiful Mind – Mother Jones
From an interview with the creator of Brain Pickings:
When you intercept the rumination process with something that requires your full attention—that’s stimulating and absorbing, that places a demand on your intellectual focus—you don’t get to ruminate. In a way, it’s a mental health aid to be able to do that so much. My routine, what I do, it just feels like home. It’s my comfort food.
No hipster hats. No acoustic guitar in the studio.
Kanye West during the making of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Photo By Nabil Elderkin. (via)
Stay focused, and stay away from unknown females.
Wisdom from Ron Artest, profiled in Say Queensbridge: Ron Artest Is An NBA Champion, And It All Makes Sense Now.
Mark Larson 