Celebrate Creativity
This podcast is a deep dive into the world of creativity - from Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman to understanding the use of basic AI principles in a fun and practical way, as well as some of the greatest historical figures whoever lived, as well as some who never did!
Mommy Issues
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Welcome to celebrate creativity and the Hall of imaginationâ This episode is called Mommy Issues. It begins with a conversation between Mr. Poe, and myself, the night watchman.
Now Mr. Poe, we want you to be comfortable here, and I spoke with the museum supervisor and we agree that it might be best to start with a conversation about someone who you probably loved very much, your motherâ There are those who say that you might have had. âMommy issuesâ
Mr. BartleyââSir, my mother died when I was scarcely thr...
Poe at UVA
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Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and the Hall of Imagination. You know, I have been thinking a great deal about the wax figure of Edgar Allan Poe education was one of Jefferson's constant preoccupations and this is where Edgar Allan Poe comes in. And the supervisor of the museum suggested that I talk with the writer about a period in his life when he did not experience the struggles of poverty.
First I'd like to take a pre-look at some of the complexities of the early University of Virginia.
Support...
Alone
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In a few nights, the clock would strike midnight.
The museum would become still.
Those dark eyes would open.
And I would have to find a gentle way to tell Edgar Allan Poe that death had not silenced him.
It had only kept him from hearing the applause. Mr. Poe, you famously wrote this poem about the fact that you always felt aloneâ
From childhoodâs hour I have not been
As others wereâI have not seen
As others sawâI could not brin...
Fighting Words
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Welcome to celebrate creativity and the hall of imaginationâ This is the second episode regarding Edgar Allan Poe for the month of October. And the proceeding episode, the night watchmen had been called to the office of the supervisor for the wax museum. We begin with the night watchmen speakingâ
Sir, are you calling me in here because I did something wrong?
No. In fact, I called you here because I need your help.
He stood and walked toward the tall wooden crate.
We...
The New Exhibit
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Welcome to *Celebrate Creativity*.
I am the Night Watchman here at the Hall of Imaginationâthe finest wax museum in the whole world, at least during the hours when respectable people are awake. After midnight, it may still be the finest wax museum in the world. But it is not always respectable.
I had just reported for work when the little red light began blinking on the telephone in the security office. I picked up the receiver.
Security office. Night Watchman speaking....
Fallingwater Dreams, Part Two
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Welcome to the what should be the second of two episodes looking at Fallingwater from a musical perspectiveâ and this episode is Fallingwater Dreams. Part two This podcast episode begins with the night watchmenâ Roughly pattern after yours trulyâtalking to the wax figure of Frank Lloyd Wright, about a CD of music that I wrote when I was a guide at Fallingwater. And yes, this the recording is an actual thing, with the obvious exception of the talking wax figure of Mr. Wright.
Now Mr. Wright, let us use music t...
Fallingwater Dreams, Part One
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Welcome to the what should be the first of two episodes looking at Fallingwater and the house from a musical perspectiveâ and this episode is Fallingwater Dreams. Part one This podcast episode begins with Mr. George Bartley talking to the wax figure of Frank Lloyd Wright, about a CD of music that Mr. Bartley wrote when he was a guide at Fallingwater. And yes, this is based on a real record recording which you will hear during this episode. Yes, the recording is an actual thing, with the obvious exception is the talking wax...
Tragedy Strikes
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Welcome to the second episode in this miniseries about Frank Lloyd Wright. This is George Bartley in a wax museum in the city of Chicago, and we are talking to a wax figure of .the great architect himself. When we left Frank was talking about his trip to Europe with hisâhow shall I see itâhis lover MAMAH.
When Frank returned to the United States, he did not live with his wife Kitty and his children but instead lived with MAyAH.
Mr. Bartley, that is true, and my m...
The World's Greatest Architect
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Welcome to the Hall of Imagination âmy name is George Bartley and today I'd like to talk with one of my heroes.
And seated behind a desk is a rather elderly gentleman and a suit and straw hat.
Could you tell me who you are sir,?
I am Frank Lloyd Wright âthe architect.
This is quite an honorâ You are one of my heroes.
That is an honor for me to hear. I have noticed that you are rather chatty when it...
The Weight
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Finally! This is the concluding episode for The 700-Pound Pineapple
 There are moments when an ordinary object stops being ordinary. It becomes a symbol. It gathers meaning until it weighs far more than any scale could measure.
That is what happened to the pineapple in this series.
At first, the seven-hundred-pound pineapple was an exaggeration, a way of describing the absurd weight of something that should have been manageable. It was the story of a body meeting an object, of a...
The Unfinished Story
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In the previous episode, I talked about Dostoevsky, but I want to emphasize that the author does not offer a cheerful slogan. He offers recognition. He knows that illumination and darkness can occupy the same life. And in this episode, I want to explore some of Dostoevsky's ideas from a purely personal perspective.
At the beginning of this journey, the seven-hundred-pound pineapple was a ridiculous image for something painfully real: the sudden weight that changed ordinary movement and rearranged daily life. Across these episodes, that weight became a...
The Idiot
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Welcome to Celebrate Creativity. This is Part Five of The 700-Pound Pineapple, an episode I call âThe Idiot.â
In the first episode of this series, I talked about my own experiences with epilepsy. I do not intend to tell that entire story again. It is already part of the journey of the seven-hundred-pound pineapple, and it belongs where I first placed it. But personal experience can sometimes open a door into literature. Once the door is open, another voice may ente...
The Wheelchair as Freedom!
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I had never expected a wheelchair to feel like freedom.
That may sound strange. Most of us grow up thinking of a wheelchair as a symbol of limitation. In movies, television programs, and even ordinary conversation, someone is said to be âconfined to a wheelchairâ or âbound to a wheelchair.â The language suggests imprisonment. It suggests that the chair is the problem and that the person sitting in it has somehow been reduced.
But when I recently used a wheelchair at a medical facility, I did no...
A Pig on Ice
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Welcome to Celebrate Creativity - and this is the third of a series called the 700 pound pineapple - an episode that I call Pigs on Ice. Whereas in the last episode, I ended on a relatively elevated tone with musings about creativity - in this episode at least I wanna start out by talking about the continuing saga of the church people or pig S on ice brigade. And if you have not heard the previous episode, I invite you to go back and listen to it firstâ Hopefully everything will make more se...
The Pineapple and the Playbook
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It was agreed that every week the church people would bring roughly 4 bags of groceriesâ food that was certainly welcome at first. It may not have been the greatest food, but that is not really an issue when you're hungry. Then the food pantryâ And I will not use any namesâstarted bringing food that had clearly expiredâ Some of the expiration dates were from several months ago. In the meantimeâ I ate some of the food without expiration dates and got violently illâ Possibly some kind of food poisoning. I really didn't know...
Did Bob Dylan Cause My Seizures?
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Hello, my name is George Bartley, and I'd like to welcome you to Celebrate Creativityâthis is basically the introduction to a six part series called The 700 Pound Pineapple - and if that title doesn't make much sense right now, stick with me and I can guarantee you that by the end of the series it definitely will. Six episodes for one podcast series out of many may seem like a lot at first, but I have spent a great deal of time on this miniseries, and I hope that you will fi...
Pineapple Promo
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What does a pineapple weigh?
And no, due to the incredibly personal nature of this podcast series, I will leave the wax museum format for several episodes to talk about an actual experience and how I responded and did not respond to a ramificationsâ But getting back to that pineappleâŠ
According to the remarkably unreliable authority of my imagination, this particular pineapple weighed approximately 700 pounds.
It did not drop out of the sky.
It did not roll off the back of a produce truck.
And I did not atte...
Monster?
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Welcome to Hall of Wonder - part of Celebrate Creativity. Today I want to start exploring Shakespeare's playâMacbeth.And here is the wax figure character of Macbeth, himself. You know Macbeth, I will get directly to the point. Some people call you a monster.
Mr. Barley, I would not be so quick with such a judgment. Mr. Shakespeare's trick is much sharper than that: he shows someone who can still chooseâand then shows you the exact moment when I start out sourcing my choices to ambition, marriage, and prop...
The Island Speaks!
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Welcome to the Hall of Imagination - and today I'm speaking with one of the characters of William Shakespeareâs The Tempest. And today's episode is entitled âCALIBAN: THE ISLAND SPEAKSâ
First I better briefly fill you in on the opening plot of The Tempest. So: thereâs a man named Prospero. He used to be a dukeâvery fancyâthen he got kicked out by his own brother. He ends up shipwrecked on an island with his daughter Miranda, brings a library the size of his ego, learns magic, and decides...
Plagues!
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Welcome to the Hall of Imagination for the episode âPlaguesâ
The strange thing about an invisible enemy⊠is that you canât glare it down.
You canât bargain with it.
You canât even boo it off the stage.WILL (dry):
Oh, you can boo it, sir. The heavens will not careâ
but you may feel better.GEORGE:
This is an episode that deals with plague in Shakespeareâs lifetime⊠and COVID in ours.
Two...
A Fascination with Language
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Welcome to the second and final episode of Master Shakespeare and myself as we discuss parallelism, and a few other matters. We begin in the Hall of Imagination in a Chicago wax museum at night.
Mr. Bartley: Master Shakespeare,There is still another meaning of parallelism that interests me. You and I are separated by more than four centuries. You wrote for the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage. I interpret your plays for Deaf audiences in the modern world. Our lives could hardly be more different.
Master Shakespeare: And y...
Words Become Music
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Welcome to the Hall of Imagination for an episode with William Shakespeare called words become music. And here is Master Shakespeare himself as as he explains one of the most commonly used rhetorical devices of them all.
Mr. Bartley: Master Shakespeare, there is a word that continues to appear whenever people discuss your writing. That word is âparallelism.â
Master Shakespeare: A formidable word, Mr. Bartley. Five syllables marching in formation. Any word of five syllables must surely be either profoundly important or invented merely to f...
WHERE PASSION RULES
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Welcome to the Hall of Imagination - this episode is called Opposites!
Tonightâs rhetorical device is antithesis.
You might say that the rhetorical device of ANTITHESIS is a perfect âShakespeare in conversationâ device because he loves thinking in opposites. And this episode is going to deal with antithesis or balancing contrasting ideas in parallel structure. Two examples are in Romeo and Juliet with (âO brawling love, O loving hateâŠâ) and then riffing to Hamlet (âTo be, or not to beâ). By the way, To be, or not to be is also a gre...
Repeating at the Beginning
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This podcast is Celebrate Creativity and this series is Hall of Imagination. My name is George Bartley.
GEORGE (Host):
Nowâquick note for listeners: today weâre talking a little bit more about a rhetorical device that Shakespeare would've learned in school. Donât run away. âRhetorical deviceâ simply means a tool a writer uses to make language more memorable, more persuasive, more musicalâsometimes all at once.
Tonightâs tool is called anaphora.
GEORGE: Master Shakespeare, are you with us?
SHAKESP...
Persuasion on the Stage
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And this person here must be shakespeareâs teacher.-
Hic LatÄ«nÄ tantum loquimur.
Pardon me.
I said that we only speak Latin here.
But I don't know Latin. Could you speak in English?
Well, yes, ordinarily all of the class is communicated using Latin. But I assume I can make one exception for you now since you do seem to be an English speaking person.
Thank you very much. But first, I have...
One, Two, Three!
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Welcome to Hall of Imaginationâand this is the first in a series of episodes about William Shakespeare. And here we have a wax figure of the BARD himself. And personally, let me say as an actor that I am really excited about the prospect of learning more about what makes William Shakespeare so great! Oh here you are!
Mr. Shakespeare, I am really excited about this series of podcast episodes.
Now we are not going to begin by interviewing Hamlet⊠or Juliet⊠or Lady Macbeth⊠or RomeoâŠ
Love Me Tender
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Mr. Presley, I'd like to begin in Tupelo, move through Sun Records and the explosion of the 1950s, and then spend time with Vegas ., the  pills, the isolation, and the wreckage.
Mr. Bartley, it seems that you really knew about my life.
Mr. Bartley, I was born January 8, 1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, into poverty and instability. MY twin brother, Jesse Garon, was stillborn. That loss was not an abstract line on a genealogy chart. It marked MY parents, especially MY mother Gladys, and by all accounts left m...
Rockâs First Guitar Hero
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Permit me to tell a very short story about something that really happened. Years ago, I saw Chuck Berry live at the Paramount Theatre in Manhattan.Â
I later learned that a few years after that, the Paramount Theater was completely shut down. Anyway, that night Chuck Berry was on a bill with The Animals and The Dixie Cupsâa lineup that already told you how fast the musical world was changing. The British Invasion bands were arriving with their sharp suits and American R&B records tucked under their arms. In fact...
Allegations
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I'd like to begin the final part of this two part series regarding Michael Jackson by looking at late 1993.
Yes, Mr. Bartley, in 1993, I proposed to Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley, over the phone. We were married in La Vega, Dominican Republic, in May of 1994 by civil judge Hugo Francisco Ălvarez PĂ©rez.
I would imagine that the tabloid media would have a field day with that marriage!
They certainly did! In fact the tabloid media speculated that the wedding was a...
Becoming the King of Pop
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Welcome to the hall of imagination, and I can't believe what I'm seeing. This is the first time that I have ever seen a wax figure who is now deceased that I saw in real life.
Yes, I am Michael Jackson, and you say that you have seen me before?
Yes, I saw you with your brothers at a concert in Washington DC.
AH, Mr. Bartley, I believe that I remember that concert very well.
And Michael, if I may call...
Pineapple Promo
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Christ said to feed the hungry, not to give them food poisoning! This will all make sense in September.
You see, In early September, I'll be sharing a special series called The 2000 Pound Pineapple. I am announcing it now because the events that comprise The 2000 Pound Pineapple are taking place right now, and should be over by September. I wanna be able to look at them in perspective.
No, it's not about tropical fruit. It's about a very real experience that completely changed my daily routine and taught me...
Being Alive!
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In the previous episode, we walked with Walt Whitman down the open roads of America, hearing the chorus of ordinary lives. Whitmanâs poetry celebrated the sweep of America, the chorus of countless lives, and the boundless possibilities of freedom. Across the ocean and slightly later in time, Dostoevsky turned his gaze inward, exploring the shadowed recesses of the human heart. Whereas Whitmanâs lines embraced the world, Dostoevskyâs narratives probe the tensions, doubts, and moral struggles that define our inner lives. In moving from Whitman to Dostoevsky, we travel from the expans...
I Contain Multitudes!
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Welcome to Hall of Imagination. - in your previous episode I mentioned my suspicions that I would be having some more episodes dealing with Walt Whitman very soon. Well that time has come, and I'd love to talk a little bit more with the wax figure of Walt Whitman
Walt, are you prepared to speak to me tonight?\
Certainly George, you know it can get rather boring up here on this pedestal and I welcome the chance to just simply communicate with someone who is appreciative.
<...Just Call Me Walt
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Welcome to the hall of imagination. Tonight I was looking up at the wax figure of the writer Walt Whitmanâ And I was not surprised in the least when he looked down at me and began speaking.
George, I was most commonly known as "Walt" among friends, family, and in much of my correspondence, rather than as "Mr. Whitman." My parents shortened my given name from Walter to Walt when I was born, and used this familiar form throughout my life. As a poet, I believe I embraced a democratic and acc...
Milton
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Hello this is George Bartley, and I was walking through the wax museum when I ran across the figure of John Milton. Naturally I had to stop, and I watched him as he came to life and began speaking.
Mr. Milton, this is indeed an honor! Do you mind if I speak with you tonight?
Certainly not. I would definitely appreciate the company. And and what is your name?
My name is George Bartley, and I was in English and drama major in collegeâSO TH...
The Golden Key
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In the previous episode, I talked about an exhibit of the inklingsâ Token, Williams, and Barfield. But I would like to devote this entire episode to an individual who is arguably the most well-known of the inklingsâCS Lewis.Â
Mr. Lewis, how do you believe the inklings influenced you as a writer.
Ah, Mr. Bartley, I began as a rationalist atheist, but the Inklings helped me blend logic, imagination, and faith. The result was stories that enchant across generations, such as The Chronicles of Narnia and essay...
What Were the Inklings?
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What Were the Inklings?
Todayâs episode deals with four people instead of one individual.Â
They are often classified as one group because they were a band of university friends who argued, challenged, and inspired each otherâthe Inklings.â You see, the Inklings were largely a group of Oxford professors, writers, and thinkers who met to read aloud, debate, and challenge one another.Â
First, I'd like to concentrate on Mr. CS Lewis. Is what I have been saying a fair way...
Guttenberg
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I sincerely hope that you are enjoying the episodes that make up the Hall of Imagination. A wax museum is a wonderful metaphor. During the day, the figures are silent exhibits. At night, they become people again. That gives me tremendous freedom to let them explain themselves, argue, laugh, and even admit uncertaintyâall while hopefully making it clear to my audience that they're listening to a dramatization grounded in history.
After I had finished talking with the inventor of paper in the previous episode, I came face-to-face with a wax fi...
Freedom!
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Mr. Douglas, I think it would be very interesting for our listeners if you could relate the part of your life when you finally succeeded in making your escape from slavery.
But before narrating any of the peculiar circumstances, I deem it proper to make known my intention not to state all the facts connected with the transaction. My reasons for pursuing this course may be understood from the following: First, were I to give a minute statement of all the facts, it is not only possible, but quite probable...
Baltimore
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Could you describe your voyage to Baltimore?
Frederick Douglas: We sailed out of Miles River for Baltimore on a Saturday morning. I remember only the day of the week, for at that time I had no knowledge of the days of the month, nor the months of the year. On setting sail, I walked aft, and gave to Colonel Lloydâs plantation what I hoped would be the last look. I then spent the remainder of the day in looking ahead, interesting myself in what was in the distance rather th...
