Current screening: bottle rocket. The first Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson film. before Rushmore, before royal tennenbaums, before life aquatic with Steve Zisou. You can see the beginning of what would eventually be greatness. art creates art. Art inspires art. I had never thought about this before. in it, but never outside of it enough to think about it. one day in 2002 Beth Ann told me that she used the rise and shine album a lot to paint to. that it inspired her in a certain way, that as a painter and not a musician herself that music had a profound effect on her work; her painting was always slightly altered depending on what she was listening to at the time.
I told her that I was working on a new album, what would eventually be sleep with you, but that I didn’t know what it was yet or what it was about; but I shared with her how I go to the store and buy lots of picture and photo books when I am working on a new album. I keep stacks of photo books or painting books all over the house and bring a backpack full of them to the studio to inspire me. for rise and shine I carried around a lot of books of Picasso and van Gogh books and would flip through them all day and night to stay open and fresh and excited and inspired about the album and the possibilities of art. “and that would help you? that would help your music? looking at the paintings in the books,’ she asked. ‘yeah. A lot. makes me create better music, staring at the pictures…’
‘what kind of painting books are you looking at now?’ she asked. ‘Well now I’m more into photo books… I’m really into these erotica photography books actually…’ ‘you mean naked women?’ ‘Not exactly… but sometimes yeah. Even more than that. all sorts of different things… lots of books of girls… mostly black and whites… bondage, sexual without being overtly sexual… like that… fetish stuff… nudes… yeah…’ ‘how is it affecting your work? Compared to the Picasso books?’ ‘well its bringing about a whole different kind of music… its a lot more rock… and all the songs seem to be about girls, or sex, or love, or drugs… I don’t know yet…’ Beth Ann let out a big sigh, a happy sigh, and we kept walking… she put her arm around the king and asked, ‘I love that.’ ‘what?’ ‘just how art inspires art like that… how the art of one artist inspires another artist and how circular it is… how the fields cross… how I paint to music and how Fishy composes music flipping through painting books…’
so this is where bottle rocket comes into the story I guess. Not really bottle rocket, because I can’t say I’m loving it yet. I think as with a lot of things I’m kind of the opposite of most people when it comes to Wes’s work. Whereas a lot of film lovers prefer his early movies (like with woody Allen as well), everyone talking about bottle rocket or Rushmore and a lot of them not really digging royal tennenbaums and even fewer getting life aquatic from what I can tell… I prefer his work in the order from the top down, life aquatic to me is a masterpiece, something that will last forever in the hearts and minds of humankind; it’s a van Gogh. More a Picasso, because I have always liked Picasso more myself… but for me its juice, watching his movies, its not me the person sitting enjoying the film… its that… but not just that… its me the artist studying the film, being inspired by the film, taking notes, getting ideas, having ah-hahs about my own art… admiring it as one does a fine painting in a gallery or a fine wine… and through that experience…. more art… more ideas… more possibilities… more potential.. the world stays open… and my art keeps coming… eternal sunshine of the spotless mind had that same effect on me. I think in the long run, in the bigger picture, I will look back in years to come and understand that that one movie inspired countless songs and full albums even… the mental and emotional impact it had on me was unfathomable.
Current spin: kings of convenience. BUY IT. I love it. soft and romantic. Reminds me of Donovan and Simon and Garfunkel.