Tom Sito writes , “Oct. 27, 1886- Musical fantasy “A Night on Bald Mountain” premiered in Russia. Composer Modest Mussorgsky worked as a florist during the day and wrote music at night. He was convinced he couldn’t make a living just writing.” My comments deserve being posted here:
We almost all have a lack of faith starting out. Deems Taylor (who MCs FANTASIA) wrote of Rimsky Korsakov who never learned how to write music until the end of his career when he got a job teaching it, “The history of music has always been that the theorists of each generation collect examples and make rules from the work of the proceeding generation which did not know it was making rules.” (Visiting Muscovite, OF MEN AND MUSIC. David Mamet writes, “Invent nothing. Deny nothing. Stand up. Speak up. Stay out of school.” (TRUE & FALSE). That applies across the board. Great picture. Disney got Bela Lugosi to model for that. A young fellow asked me what was the best course to follow to persue a career in animation. I said, “Stay as far away as you can from animation schools. Find a studio that is hiring. Earn while you learn. A job credit is worth more than five years at animation school.” He had been homeless through no fault of his own. When I learned of it I brought him on board. He went out that morning. He returned at noon with a job. When he told me where I said, “You’re at the best place in the city. Two weeks later I ran into his boss. Told him I had a kid living with me who when he asked what the best thing was to do to follow a career in animation I had told to stay as far away from animation schools as possible, find a studio that was hiring and earn while he learned. His boss said, “That was excellent advice.” I said, “He took it. He got a job at the best place in town.” His boss said, “Where’s that?” I said, “Your place.” He said, “Who was it?” I said, “Bruce Simpson.” His boss, Greg Duffell, said, “He’s good!” Saved him years of his life and all that needless expense. Bruce drew me as Christ. In that moment when he was homeless I was. http://www.brucesimpson.tv/achievements.htm , WIZTHEMC tells a similar story in FORBES about coming to me homeless and finding a life: https://web.archive.org/…/wizthemcs-built-success…/. Got a postcard from Emo Philips saying, “I honestly believe you are the greatest teacher I know for only you preach the evil of teaching. Well, not only you. David Mamet confirms everything you’ve been saying all along in his book TRUE AND FALSE. ” “Like the belief of the terminally ill in medicine the belief of the legitimately frightened in the educational process is a comforting lie.” — David Mamet . John Taylor Gatto teaches the same, His essay AGAINST SCHOOL is must reading. His book, THE UNDERGROUND HISTORY OF AMERICAN EDUCATION nails it. Gatto writes, “Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they’ll never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology – all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.
“First, though, we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands. Mandatory education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants. Don’t let your own have their childhoods extended, not even for a day. If David Farragut could take command of a captured British warship as a pre-teen, if Thomas Edison could publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today), there’s no telling what your own kids could do. After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I’ve concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.”
The best comes from Jane Jacobs, “I had wonderful teachers in the first and second grades who taught me everything I know. After that, I’m afraid, the teachers were nice, but they were dopes…”
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