That %&$@ Betsy Ross!

OK, creative class membership comes with its own, idiosyncratic list of snobberies. That's fine -- most of that I already had. To wit: music (indie and songwriterly), film (indie and/or auteur-driven; definitely not Hollywood Product), books (bouquets for Dave Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer and David Sedaris; raspberries for Jerry Jenkins and Mary Higgins Clark), beer (gourmet; no industrial product) and food (organic preferred).

Of course, David Brooks had his own name for folks like us: "bourgeouis bohemians."

But I discovered a new one just a few days ago. As a company, we have a flagpole at our disposal, a flagpole currently with no adornment. So our publisher asked me what I thought ought to go there. So I said, "Well, of course the American flag, then right below that, I guess a company flag."

He responded: "Nah, I don't really like the American flag."

Me: "What?!? What are you talking about?"

Him: "It's not the country... I just don't like the design. The design never worked for me."

The bottom line -- poor Betsy Ross. If only she'd gone to SCAD or Renneslaer. Then we creatives could proudly fly her goshdarn flag.

Sheesh.

Musings from the Creative Class

OK, I suppose it's obvious now how consuming my new job is. Probably closer to the point, it's much more of a creative outlet than my former existence as a corporate cog. Hence... my creative energy ends up in writing and editing rather than feeding this blog. So the bottom line is that while I've not decided to unplug this, I am scaling back my updates. For now, I'm shooting for once a week at minimum (rather than the old almost-daily deal.) I figured it would be good to set expectations rather than having folks come here and be disappointed that the same old thing is still up.

(It could be worse. I could be Ethan and only update my blog once a quarter, if that...)

Anyway, enough blogging about blogging. (Meh!) I've now been a part of the "creative class" for about a month -- this means I'm one of those schmucks who wears jeans to work (or all-black), hardly goes anywhere without his Mac Powerbook G4, and sometimes sets up a temporary office for a morning or afternoon in a coffee shop, bar or restaurant. It also means that work has become less about an 8-to-5 and more about my life. Because I'm so intensely invested in what I'm doing, I've found myself logging on on weekends or late at night to check email and keep things moving forward.

Here are a few of the other culture-shocks I'm grappling with...

* No one in my office has any issues with having a beer at lunch. (Although if it were Bud instead of St. Bernardus Abt. 12, I would certainly face censure!) Actually on this, the opprobrium comes from the goddess, not the bosses. *grin* So it's still a rare event...

* The following things are now called "work": listening to CDs. watching DVDs. going to concerts. collecting pictures. downloading music.

* I'm realizing now how much I took the following corporate standard operating procedures for granted: 1) regular, thorough office cleaning; and, 2) regular emptying of trash and recycling cans. *grin*

* I have to isolate myself at times to get serious stacks of work done. Because I work with friends, am an extrovert by nature, and often choose to be distracted by conversations around me, when in the office I often have trouble sustaining attention on a task for more than an hour. So I have to seek out the aforementioned coffee shop (or just my own dining room) on occasion to churn through some email, editing or my own writing. I realize now that my former newspaper life (and the open newsroom in which I operated) only really worked for me because there was a deadline every day.