JUNE 4, 2006

Welcome to Elsas Creativity Blog,
writer blogs, poetry blogs, musical blogs,
on the making of
Elsa's Creativity Emporium,
elsas word story image idea music emporium.
Blogs on Creativity.

This place has been a long time in the coming, in the making.

It's been years and years since I got the idea for Zee's Cafe Cafe,
a virtual cafe for me/Zee and lots of other alternative artists.

It's been a couple of years since the Fluffers Book
(Caro Carolina, Geela Gribbs, and Fluffers the Invisible Dog)
was sent out to publishers.

My word pieces - words meant to go with music -
I've been writing them for over a dozen years.

It's been a decade and a half since The Manfear Factor was completed,
and later left on the shelf because I couldn't find takers
and didn't have the energy to keep on trying.

The Chosen Home project -
that's also been in the making for over five years.

The Creativity Emporium,
a place for loads of creative people to upload creative works.
My Creative Match,
a place for creative people to find a find to complete projects.
Again it's been years.

And now here it all is, so many projects, for myself and for others,
so many hopes and dreams, so many stories, images, ideas, thoughts,
inspirations, so many moments where something has burned inside me,
burned with the desire to come out into the world.

So once again, welcome.

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FROM PLANNING TO CREATION

At first, I planned to have different sites for each of the projects - and then something inside me went - No. So here it is all, together.

So many links are planned ... going outward to ...

The Fluffers Book, where Caro has to figure out what is real and what isn't. One thing she knows is real is that her two so-called best friends won't talk to her, and that she can't see Fluffers, the invisible dog. But could the dog still be real? She doesn't know. She does know that Fluffers found Jake, left unconscious in a ditch.

Zee's Cafe Cafe, a virtual cafe for spoken word and music, for images and ideas, for Zee and her moments and so many others.

And then there's Elsa's creativity blog. Elsa - me - what holds all these projects together. The blog is just about the last thing started, though I kept a journal for years. If you want to know about the making of the project, of the virtual cafe, and all the rest. If you want to know of the ongoing trials and pleasures, welcome.

In My Own, My Chosen Home - words that came to me not long after my partner and I bought our country place. Looking out the windows I felt so at home. And over time the project evolved - as I have realized just how important "home" is to me, and how in many ways its has been hard for me - and my parents before me - to find a place that truly feels like home. It was also a long time before I found work that felt like home to me - something that it felt right to be doing.

And as for a home space for my creative works, that has taken, is taking, even longer. I am just building that place, in fact, with this site - and as with so much in my life, it is to be both for me and for others - for other people with creative projects that need a home, and for people who feel at home looking through these projects, who gain from exploring them.

Who will feel at home here? And what does home mean? Come look at In my Own, My Chosen Home.

The Sexe-Tetes, on the other hand, feel at home just about anywhere. They like flash, razzmatazz and other similar jazz. They like jazzy and snazzy, dance and chance and romance. They also like ideas - just like Zee and me. But more than that, they like to savor all life has to offer, Sweet Young Things They're Not. They're sweet and sour, not always nice and all that spice. Still, they care ... about many things - taking care of homeless children and homeless animals, as well as taking care of having fun, indulging in White Chocolate and Hot Fudge Sauce. They care and care and care. Life is too short, they say, not to care. What's worth living for, if one does not care. So they care, including about each other. What's a friend for, they say. And they care about Zee's Cafe Cafe, where they appear every now and then, especially on Friday night - Friday night on the town, some like it hot, some like it cold, they like it bright and bold, with flash and flare and style. Fry Day, they somedays call their favorite day, sizzling hot, scintizzlingly hot.

The Sexe-Tetes are one side of Not-Me.

There is another Not-Me, who wonders if it wouldn't be safer to hide, who listens when others tell her to be careful about what she says and to whom, who wonders if she shouldn't keep some of her ideas to herself, to fears the anger of others - especially the anger of the oppressed, those who have been hurt by prejudice and injustice.

This Not-Me is actually in many ways closer to me than the Sexe-Tetes. I have had to fight my way to being able to speak of things like counter-hostility, the rage of the "righteous." The "righteous": those injured and raging outward, often against anyone they see as Not-Like-Them, Not-Part-of-Their-Group, Not-Agreeing-With-Them. I taught for years on valuing diversity, tiptoeing my way to talking about counter-hostility, touching on it lightly, bringing it up but with a lot of hesitation - at first mainly fearing to hurt feelings, and then later fearing even more the anger, rage, wrath that I feared the topic arouse.

Anyway, this Not-Me wonders if it wouldn't be better to listen to those who warn her - often in a whisper - that some things had better not be said, that it would make some people mad. Some people, she hears over and over, feel they have the right to make others shut up because they are sure they are right, right, right. Be careful about such people, she hears over and over - be careful, careful, careful.

Be careful - that is so different from being caring - so unlike the Sexe-Tetes who care freely and easily. The Sexe-Tetes are unafraid, so unlike the one I wish were totally Not-Me. But they are so unafraid, in fact, that they find it recognize Not-Me at all, to recognize that what it like to fear and that she does have reason to fear.

Elsa. All of me. Creativity. Fear. And Ideas upon Ideas. Ideas, I am deeply certain, need to be as creative, as rooted in creative thinking (as well as in in-depth research and fact), as any other form of creativity. Ideas - drawing on thought, experience, information, facts.

An idea, I have heard (and it rang very true), is much more important to most people than a fact. People may believe the utmost nonsense - stuff that utterly flies in the face of any information available (like that one race is way better than another, that one group of people has the right to annihilate or enslave another, etc.). People may be utterly absolutely positive about their beliefs, may be sure that their beliefs are FACTS CARVED IN STONE - no matter what the facts actually are.

Those clearly are not the kind of ideas I value. I value ideas that come from facts, are backed by facts, explore facts, try to make sense of facts, of reality, of experience, of life.

Making sense of the world, or anyway trying to - that's a hard one.

That's the kind of thinkiing I like - in part because it is my belief (based on what I know of history) that each piece of extra sense may be able to help us do positive things - just as experiements let us know that certain medicines are more effective than others. Believing something isn't good enough. Guessing isn't good enough. A hunch, intuition - that may be based on something we have information for but can't quiete put into words. Or it may be totally wrong - it may be based on a fear or prejudice or misperception.

So, anyway, ideas. I cae about those. And I care about cooking all kinds of information together to make for really juicy interesting ideas. Available at The Idea Emporium. And idea is often an image of something - and images like ideas have much ppower.

And for now, that's it for me.

****

FOR OTHERS, NOT JUST FOR ME

But there's a big world out there - so many people. And this site is for more than me. It's for other people's creative works and creative thinking. And for those interesting in this creativity.

Already Zee's Cafe Cafe has place for the work of others spoken word pieces, dreams, songs. Much more space for others is planned. Well-organized space. Well-labelled. So people browsing can find what is there, what they're most interested in.

****

WHO WILL HELP ME BUILD THIS ARK?

I asked those questions long ago. And I have not done all this alone. I have had help - I think of Karen Wilson, Mark Corwin, Diana Fajrasjl, Eva von Gencsy, Philippe Guerin, Julie Guerin, Robert NIckford, Cindy Blackburn, Bluma Blicher, Isabelle Girard, Ed Deigan, Sharon Schmerer, Erika Erikkson, Yves Gigon, Gerda Schieder, Minda Bernstein, Andrew Homzy, Dael Foster, Deborah Carruthers. And there have been past partners who encouraged me.

Some people came into my life briefly, and some stayed. Finding people has been hard for me. I am grateful for all I did get and continue to get from people.

I come back to - I have not done it alone. Perhaps most of all, I think of my father, so creative himself, and supportive of all my creativity. He loved reading. He shared my love of stories and comic books and heroes we could identify with. He also shared - and perhaps passed to me - the difficulty of finding a way for his creative works to reach out into the world. Anyway, my father, my self. So many gifts and passiions. So many hopes. I am seeing my father now, leaning forward, his eyes bright and hopeful - a four-year-old's eyes, I always thought. His back is curved. He is older - like he was in his last years. He is wearing slippers. For me, he is still alive.

I know that, compared to my father, I have had so much more that helped me. First of all, I had a father who supported me. Then I had an ongoing education that enriched my thinking; a society where women have been increasingly given the chance to take our place fully; also a society where one can go into and out of education throughout one's life, so that I took years between degrees; and then personal growth movements (therapy, psychoanalysis, adult children of alcoholics, yoga, meditation, journal writing) that have helped me get past fears I had no idea I had, made me realize I was much more imperfect that I could have imagined, and also led to the hard realization that deep change is very difficult, a lifelong journey. I am grateful for the time I have had to get this far, and hope to have much more - to get out my work, my father's, and so many other peoples.

Also there are so many other dreams - like to do workshops to encourage the creativity and fuller living of others. I would like to do this because I see that one of the tragedies of the present-day, is not just the misery in parts of the world, but the ways that caring people who have so many opportunities (people like me, in other words) so often live without blossoming fully.

My big hope. That I am actually in the process of helping myself, and you as well. Having fun and giving pleasure. Having ideas and stimulating you. Giving space for my creativity and yours.

Anyway, for now ...

Welcome aboard.

signed,

Elsa

Zee

Not-me

Sexe-Tete

All of me

including my early childhood self, Dely,
who took the name Elsa

and now also
Elsa
of Elsas word story image idea music emporium
plus Elsas creativity blog

JUNE 4, 2006

copyright © Elsa Schieder 2006
publishing house - FlufferDuff Impressions 2006

the first entry - August 8, 2005 - Zee's Cafe Cafe - hopes and plans

As always, welcome into my world.