Strands of Genius: Dark Heart of Valentine's Day, Bland New World, Clubhouse in the 90s

plus our thoughts on: virtue and vice, and tomorrow's community meetup

Feb 16, 2021

WORKING ON | A new creativity workshop

LOOKING AHEAD
Feb 11-20: Nashville, TN
Feb 21-April 15: Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic
(if you or anyone you know has been there, or is there, please hit us up!)

:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::

The weekend held few surprises but an assumed, inevitable disappointment as the systems of power collude to make sure there are no consequences for the powerful, no matter what they do, it would seem.

Also, happy Valentine’s Day! Like many of our holidays it has darker, more visceral, origins in the mists of time [see strand below], and is primarily a huge marketing event now, [what isn’t?] but we hope you got to hug a loved one. And if not, know that we’re sending you a big hug and a reminder that holidays shouldn’t make you feel bad. You’re enough, just as you are.

We’re making preparations to head out on a plane for the first time in year (over a year for Rosie!), with some trepidation and much excitement. We are considering checking luggage. It’s all very different now. Faris is writing / editing to a very impending deadline, Rosie is trying to survive winter with Raynaud’s (tingling feet all the time!) and a writer’s difficult temperament during such times. [Sorry.]

This week, we’re especially thankful for:

Ice/sleet/snow/frozen rain have kept us safe and warm inside, with only a couple of minor falls to keep us cautious. (Be careful, it’s slippery out there!) The Flight Attendant [HBO Max], Soul [Pixar], nephews and nieces, taco delivery by Lauren on icy roads, Aisha’s quick trip, Catbird jewelry, heated socks [that sadly didn’t work], pizza with Scooter & T, Judy, and the sound of softly falling snow.

If you’d like to join us, the first five people* to respond to this email will snag a pass for tomorrow’s session. If you don’t want to take your chances, you can purchase a pass for tomorrow’s session or enroll to experience all the benefits of the School of Stolen Genius.

*These passes are available so that our readers can experience The School of Stolen Genius; If you’ve already claimed a one-off pass, you’re not eligible for this offer. We may not be able to respond to every email, however we will notify all attendees by end of day today with login details.

:: THE LINKS ::

SELF CARE AND CREATIVITY: OUR IDEAS DEPEND ON IT

Get to know tomorrow’s community meetup host, Aubree Nichols. In this article, she tackles the topic of creativity during a pandemic, asking “If a relaxed mind is a creative mind, the what happen during a global pandemic?” (Campaign)

THE DARK ORIGINS OF VALENTINE’S DAY

The roots of Valentine’s Day are found in the Roman festival Lupercalis, celebrating Lupercus, the Roman version of the Greek God Pan, which ran from Feb 13-15. The Pan reference should give you a hint of the type of festival it was. Men sacrificed some goats and dogs and then flayed them, in order to whip women with the hides. [We discovered that this practice still happens in tribal parts of Ethiopia, where boys have to run naked across the backs of as many bulls as they can and the women are whipped, with those who take the most becoming the most desirable.] Drunk and naked, the women would line up for the whipping because it supposedly gave fertility. Then the young women’s names would placed in a jar and pulled at random by a young man for coupling. Centuries later someone [or possible three people] named Valentine were executed, and the church tried to Christianize the revelry. And now we have Hallmark. (NPR)

BLAND NEW WORLD

Ben Schott, author of wonderful miscellanies and almanacs, wrote this exhaustively researched piece about a certain type of modern brand that has become increasingly generic. “what makes a brand a bland is duality: claiming simultaneously to be unique in product, groundbreaking in purpose, and singular in delivery, while slavishly obeying an identikit formula of business model, look and feel, and tone of voice.” Ben examines the strategies and creative of many of these modern brands and how similar they all are, ironically. (Bloomberg)

IS CLUBHOUSE a 90’s PARTY LINE

We’ve had a couple of goes at Clubhouse and can’t shake the feeling we’ve seen it somewhere before, on late night television in the 80s and 90s. (Youtube)

Strands of Genius is currently read by 12,000 subscribers. Support us by sponsoring an issue, becoming a member of The School of Stolen Genius, or encouraging friends or colleagues to subscribe.

:: WHAT WE’RE THINKING ABOUT: VIRTUE AND VICE ::

Last week we did a little micro-talk and panel chat for the students of Kingston’s University’s Critical Studies & Creative Industries programs, for a program called Hot Bananas! and the topic we were assigned was “virtue and vice”.

It’s a fun, open ended brief, and we decided to tell a zen story about the ups and downs of fortune, and riff off a point the Stephen Fry made in his 7 Deadly Sins podcast [highest reco go listen to it] suggesting that many sins have at least some positive functions. His only exception is anger, which he moots is inherently destructive, a form of delusion that comes over us and renders rational thought impossible, and thus cannot deliver the change it seems to want.

Since we believe that binaries are naive, it made sense to us that virtue and vice wouldn’t sit comfortably as absolute opposites. Fortunately, Aristotle had a similar view. He landed on 12 virtues and understood them as the midpoint between extremes, both of which are vices - “each virtue is the “golden mean” between a vice of excess and deficiency.”

This is like a goldilocks version of virtue, not too hot and not too cold, and all things in moderation. Including moderation.

:: AND NOW… HAPPY V FROM BOB ::

If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

rockON,
faris & rosie & ashley | your friends over at geniussteals.co

@faris is always tweeting
@rosieyakob hangs out on instagram
@ashley also writes for deaf, tattooed & employed

Know someone who could use some inspiration in their inbox? Send ‘em our way!

It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.

Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. Our Director of Operations is nomadic like us, our accounting team is based out of Washington, our company is registered in Tennessee, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.

Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)

Strands of Genius