Category Archives: Creativity

The Smoke of Creativity

Posted on May 2, 2017 by John Swinburn

When a man’s mind compels his hands to create art but his hands fail to deliver what the mind demands, his passion may morph into rage. Not an unrestrained external rage that endangers bystanders, but a smoldering animosity that sears his brain as if … Continue reading →

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Taking Shortcuts to Mediocrity

Posted on January 9, 2017 by John Swinburn

Last night, I adapted a tried-and-true (if overly simple and insufficiently spicy) recipe for Shrimp Fra Diavolo. I adapted the recipe in several ways, the two most obvious deviations being the substitution of cod for shrimp and cauliflower for rice. … Continue reading →

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Man of Many Faces

Posted on September 25, 2016 by John Swinburn

I’m playing with a smart phone app, Prisma. Here are various treatments of the same photo that I manipulated earlier (using MS Paint) to wash the background with a “psychedelic” memory; subsequent to the MS Paint manipulation, I used Prisma … Continue reading →

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Mining My Brain for Thoughts and Secrets

Posted on August 6, 2016 by John Swinburn

I’ve been awake for more than an hour and up for half an hour. And it’s only 4:30 a.m. This is not what I planned for Saturday. I planned, instead, to get up around 5:30, have a couple of cups … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Insomnia, Ruminations | 3 Comments

Self-Made Dilemma

Posted on May 24, 2016 by John Swinburn

A week ago, I wrote about what I called an epiphany. I’ve been thinking about it (the epiphany, not what I wrote about it) ever since. During the course of my contemplation, I’ve stumbled across a number of questions that … Continue reading →

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Commitment to Write

Posted on July 6, 2015 by John Swinburn

I committed to myself that I would write at least two posts on this blog every day this year. So far, I have fulfilled the commitment. It is not always easy. Some days, I’ve posted only short bursts of words here, opting to … Continue reading →

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So Many Things to Think About

Posted on March 5, 2015 by John Swinburn

Thirty-four minutes ago, when I woke up at 2:57 a.m., I was younger and the ice outside my windows was just as cold as it is now. A lot of thoughts can happen in thirty-four minutes. Impossibly large numbers of … Continue reading →

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Practical Magic

Posted on February 11, 2015 by John Swinburn

Every so often I come across a bit of software or technology or related online magic that captures my interest to such an extent that I drop virtually everything else I’m doing and focus on learning more about it.  Lately, “every so … Continue reading →

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Thinking Across the Human Divide

Posted on February 4, 2015 by John Swinburn

Creativity is impossible, I think,  without the ability to change one’s perspective, to see the world from disparate vantage points and with different eyes.  I cannot adequately capture in words,even in thought, the experience of a woman giving birth to a … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Writing | 2 Comments

Temporary Stalking Behavior

Posted on October 7, 2014 by John Swinburn

Occasionally, I sit to the side in a place where crowds of people come and go and I watch them, looking for that one person in the throng who catches my attention.  I never know why he or she catches my eye; it … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Writing | 2 Comments

Unrestrained and Untrained Creative Deviance

Posted on September 27, 2014 by John Swinburn

For reasons unbeknownst to me, I started thinking about mermaids the other day.  Maybe it was the sculpture of a mermaid I saw a few years ago in a little Mexican coastal town.  Or maybe it was a neural misfire, … Continue reading →

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Perchance to Dream

Posted on September 8, 2014 by John Swinburn

I had two odd dreams within the past few nights. That is not to say that most of my dreams are not odd, but these seemed especially so. In the first one, two people I know from the Dallas area … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Dreams | 1 Comment

Insomniac!

Posted on September 4, 2014 by John Swinburn

The mind shifts deftly from kool-aid to caterpillars, from coca-cola to criminality—and back again—with no reasonable explanation.  That’s just how the mind, as fractured as it can be at three o’clock in the morning, works. Darkness in semi-rural Arkansas is almost absolute, emphasizing the … Continue reading →

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Graveyards

Posted on June 12, 2014 by John Swinburn

Graveyards are peaceful places, on the surface. They are places of reflection and introspection. There was a time when even the worst of humanity would treat graveyards the way they would treat chapels; with dignity and reverence and, indeed, fear. Even … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Fiction | 4 Comments

The Genesis of the Future

Posted on May 27, 2014 by John Swinburn

Writers…fiction, nonfiction, and science fiction…have an exceptional history of talking and writing about things that, at the time, sound implausible…the stuff of fiction…but later become reality. Some examples: Person Prediction H.G. Wells Atomic bombs Arthur C. Clarke Online newspapers Aldous … Continue reading →

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