Moby’s Creativity Buzz Beyond Coffilosophy

I wrote to ‘try and make a difference’ in the greenYgrey years, as most creatives do; either holistically for humanity and/or nature; or their demographical groups. However, a lot of the time they either end up clashing and cancelling each other out; either political or personal; or within themselves and different parts of their lives – demographic v philosophy – or after a while even with their different age groups – youth v adulthood/middle-age.

I also wrote because I enjoy it, and think it’s the ‘career’ I’m best at: it suiting what I think is my ADHD/bipolar mind, still undiagnosed; more deep philosophical thinking than quick or automatic.

More Moby Empathy than Expected

I didn’t know much about Moby until reading his memoir, Porcelain. His Feeling So Real song was one of my favourites when I got into dance music in 1995, I loved the Play album and like the rest, and saw him at a magical light sunset time at Glastonbury 2000. I knew he was a Christian and into animal rights, but that was about it when I included him as a good monotheist (MiMo Moby: Mildly Monotheistic Moby) character in the second of the greenYgrey trilogy: Werewolf of Oz.

I related to Moby a lot more than I thought after reading his memoir, such as he having a poor one-parent upbringing; likes rock/metal and dance; went from Christianity into agnosticism; had times of hedonism and abstinence; and was looking for deep safe love while risking his life having a good time.

I’m not going to go into everything here, just that at the end of the book he describes the joys of the creative moment nicely, creating his breakthrough classic Play, which was at a time when his early career success was flagging; a creative process I’ve called coffilosophy and philosotea, as that’s when it usually happens to me; and Nick Cave described nicely at the end of 20,000 Days On Earth; and what has been my biggest personal destination for myself through my writing.

Moby: Porcelain: a Memoir
(Faber and Faber, 2016; he doesn’t mention being a character in WoO!)

P. 465: ‘…I had been getting into the… hypnotic workflow that was better than liquor or drugs or sex or science-fiction books…’
P. 468: ‘I sat back and felt that buzz I got only when I’d written something that might be good: a sense of space and expansion in and around my head, as if time were slowing and becoming richer…’
P. 469: ‘…And I knew then it was really done. I didn’t know whether it was good; I didn’t know whether anyone else would like it. But sitting cloistered in my tiny studio, sheltered from the cold rain, I thought it was complete and beautiful.’

Booker Prize Candidate Opinion Not So Outlandish

That’s how I felt when I finished the greenYgrey trilogy: a work of art; as a past winner of the Booker Prize described his book on a programme looking back at it last night. This year’s winner will be announced tonight.

I think XaW Files is/was good enough to be a contender, but I’m not a good enough reader to be a judge; reading 100 books and deciding between them. This is my forte, and the place I love to be: dipping into deep mind philosophy.

If you don’t believe that of somebody like me, then you don’t know your chavistory (chav history); as previous winners of the Booker have been – just as/or more – rougher and rawer; such as James Kelman’s  Glasgow dialect winner in 1984.

I tried to map my writer mind while travelling through the greenYgrey. It’s not too late to explore… but there will be no more… it would be like adding to a painting I feel is finished…