Kate’s 2¢: “Creativity: a short and cheerful guide” by John Cleese

“Creativity: a short and cheerful guide” by John Cleese

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   I actually enjoyed the author reading his own short boo,  He seems to have a practical solution to the whole idea of creativity.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

johncleese.com

Early life

Cleese was born in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, the only child of Reginald Francis Cleese (1893–1972), an insurance salesman, and his wife Muriel Evelyn (née Cross, 1899–2000), the daughter of an auctioneer.[4] His family’s surname was originally Cheese, but his father had thought it was embarrassing and used the name Cleese when he enlisted in the Army during the First World War; he changed it officially by deed poll in 1923.[5][6] As a child, Cleese supported Bristol City and Somerset County Cricket Club.[7][8] Cleese was educated at St Peter’s Preparatory School[9] (paid for by money his mother inherited[10]), where he received a prize for English and did well at cricket and boxing. When he was 13, he was awarded an exhibition at Clifton College, an English public school in Bristol. He was already more than 6 feet (1.83 m) tall by then.[11]

“The biggest influence was The Goon Show. Kids were devoted to it. It was written by Spike Milligan. It also had Peter Sellers in it, who of course is the greatest voice man of all time. In the morning, we’d be at school and we’d discuss the whole thing and rehash the jokes and talk about it. We were obsessed with it.”

—Cleese on his greatest comedic influence growing up, 1950s BBC Radio comedy The Goon Show.[12]

Cleese allegedly defaced the school grounds, as a prank, by painting footprints to suggest that the statue of Field Marshal Earl Haig had got down from his plinth and gone to the toilet.[13] Cleese played cricket in the First XI and did well academically, passing eight O-Levels and three A-Levels in mathematics, physics and chemistry.[14][15] In his autobiography So, Anyway, he says that discovering, aged 17, he had not been made a house prefect by his housemaster affected his outlook: “It was not fair and therefore it was unworthy of my respect… I believe that this moment changed my perspective on the world.”[16]

Cleese could not go straight to Cambridge, as the ending of National Service meant there were twice the usual number of applicants for places, so he returned to his prep school for two years[17] to teach science, English, geography, history, and Latin[18] (he drew on his Latin teaching experience later for a scene in Life of Brian, in which he corrects Brian’s badly written Latin graffiti).[19] He then took up a place he had won at Downing College, Cambridge, to read law. He also joined the Cambridge Footlights. He recalled that he went to the Cambridge Guildhall, where each university society had a stall, and went up to the Footlights stall, where he was asked if he could sing or dance. He replied “no” as he was not allowed to sing at his school because he was so bad, and if there was anything worse than his singing, it was his dancing. He was then asked “Well, what do you do?” to which he replied, “I make people laugh.”[17]

At the Footlights theatrical club, Cleese spent a lot of time with Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie and met his future writing partner Graham Chapman.[17] Cleese wrote extra material for the 1961 Footlights Revue I Thought I Saw It Move,[17][20] and was registrar for the Footlights Club during 1962. He was also in the cast of the 1962 Footlights Revue Double Take![17][20] Cleese graduated from Cambridge in 1963 with an upper second. Despite his successes on The Frost Report, his father sent him cuttings from The Daily Telegraph offering management jobs in places like Marks & Spencer.[21]

John Marwood Cleese (/kliːz/ KLEEZ; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report. In the late 1960s, he co-founded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Along with his Python co-stars Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman, Cleese starred in Monty Python films, which include Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979) and The Meaning of Life (1983).

In the mid-1970s, Cleese and first wife Connie Booth co-wrote the sitcom Fawlty Towers, in which he starred as hotel owner Basil Fawlty, for which he won the 1980 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. In 2000 the show topped the British Film Institute’s list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes; and in a 2001 Channel 4 poll, Basil was ranked second on its list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters.

Cleese co-starred with Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis, and former Python colleague Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda (1988) and Fierce Creatures (1997), both of which he also wrote. For A Fish Called Wanda he was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He has also starred in Time Bandits (1981) and Rat Race (2001) and has appeared in many other films, including Silverado (1985), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994), two James Bond films (as R and Q), two Harry Potter films (as Nearly Headless Nick) and the last three Shrek films.

Cleese has specialised in political and religious satire,[1] black comedy, sketch comedy, and surreal humour.[2] He was ranked the second best comedian ever in a 2005 Channel 4 poll of fellow comedians.[3] With Yes Minister writer Antony Jay, he co-founded Video Arts, a production company making entertaining training films. In 1976, Cleese co-founded The Secret Policeman’s Ball benefit shows to raise funds for the human rights organization Amnesty International. Although a staunch supporter of the Liberal Democrats, in 1999 he turned down an offer from the party to nominate him for a life peerage.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Creativity: a short and cheerful guide DB105851

Cleese, John Reading time: 1 hour, 2 minutes.

John Cleese

Psychology and Self-Help

Humor

The actor and co-founder of the Monty Python comedy troupe shares lighthearted advice on how anyone can learn the skill of creativity, drawing on personal experience to explain how to get into the right frame of mind, develop worthwhile ideas, and overcome blocks. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. 2020.

Download Creativity: a short and cheerful guide DB105851

Kate’s 2¢: “Keep it pithy: useful observations in a tough world” by Bill O’Reilly

“Keep it pithy: useful observations in a tough world” by Bill O’Reilly

Kate’s 2¢: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as,     describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ merely shares my thoughts about what I read.  I’m just saying…

   I’m going to re-read this book.

From: www.billoreilly.com/pg/jsp/general/billbio.jsp

Bill O’Reilly was born in Manhattan, and raised on Long Island. His Bachelor’s Degree is in History from Marist College, and he has a Master’s in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University and another Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

From NLS/BARD/LOC          :

Keep it pithy: useful observations in a tough world DB76764

O’Reilly, Bill. Reading time: 3 hours, 14 minutes.

Read by Patrick Downer. A production of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.

Government and Politics

Bestsellers

Fox News television commentator looks back on his predictions concerning the presidency of Barack Obama and offers his views on the secular progressive agenda, European socialism, religion, terrorism, and more. Bestseller. 2013.

Download Keep it pithy: useful observations in a tough world