February 2012
1 post
I've moved!
My blog, she has moved. Click here and come on over. Thanks! - Jay
Feb 6th
August 2011
2 posts
Aug 16th
2 notes
9 tags
Tap into an unending stream of creativity...
My guest post for lauraroeder.com, “Improv Tips for Entrepreneurs”,   dropped today. Use improv comedy skills to boost your creative output - even on your own! Give it a read & let me know what you think. - Jay
Aug 1st
1 note
July 2011
6 posts
8 tags
Dismantling Status...
My leadership essay, “Dismantling Status”, is on Seven Sentences: A Creative Blog for Creative People. Feedback is not only welcome, it’s encouraged! Please read, comment & share. Thanks! Please join me on Facebook.
Jul 30th
1 note
6 tags
“The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more...”
– Frank Barron
Jul 29th
9 notes
4 tags
Holler at me on Facebook! →
Click “Like”, enjoy my welcome video & introduce yourself. See you there! - Jay
Jul 19th
4 tags
Get Physical! Second Session Added
Session 1 of GET PHYSICAL! for the iO Theater Summer Intensive is sold out. A second session has been added on Saturday, July 30th. Contact the iO Training Center to reserve a spot: classes@ioimprov.com or (773) 880-0199. GET PHYSICAL! for regular iO students happens on Saturday, August 20th. Hope to see you there! I plan to lose 30 pounds just from teaching this workshop 3 times in a row....
Jul 18th
2 notes
9 tags
Jul 11th
10 notes
14 tags
GET PHYSICAL!
I am teaching my GET PHYSICAL! improv workshop especially for iO Theater Summer Intensive students. Friday, 7/22, 12pm-2:30pm. $20. Contact the iO Training Center to sign up: classes@ioimprov.com or (773) 880-0199. Not a summer intensive student? You’ll get your chance in August! Stay tuned… When plugged into the Improv Matrix we can do anything we want. So why are we standing in a line...
Jul 5th
4 notes
June 2011
6 posts
Jun 29th
“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s...”
– Ray Bradbury
Jun 13th
WatchWatch
Another one from the Way Back Machine. Toronto Improv Festival 2006. jayolsonimprov.com
Jun 9th
8 tags
WatchWatch
tamaratumbls: (via David Brooks: The social animal | Video on TED.com) jayolsonimprov.com 
Jun 3rd
2 notes
7 tags
“Do not bring people in your life who weigh you down. And trust your instincts …...”
– Michelle Obama (via soul-surfer) jayolsonimprov.com
Jun 3rd
1,462 notes
7 tags
“There’s no point in saying, ‘I don’t have an idea today, so I’ll just smoke some...”
– —Brian Eno on the creative process (via flavorpill) jayolsonimprov.com
Jun 3rd
71 notes
May 2011
21 posts
6 tags
May 31st
1 note
3 tags
May 28th
4,136 notes
5 tags
Holler at me. Shiny new Facebook page: →
I originally typed “Faceboof” and then “Faceboog.” I am a total Faceboof.
May 27th
1 note
6 tags
Excellent piece on late night TV indie-rock →
” Being on these shows doesn’t necessarily catapult you into fame, but your family and people you went to high school with think you’ve become a rock star.” - AC Newman miw: lotsa words, lotsa links…just the way I like my internet journalism. also raises some interesting question about the value of music on late night talk shows.  If it doesn’t really help the show…or...
May 25th
12 tags
May 25th
14 tags
“One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making...”
– A. A. Milne jayolsonimprov.com
May 25th
22 notes
10 tags
Two Quote Tuesday: What do JRR Tolkein & Martin...
  “Not all those who wander are lost.” - J.R.R. Tolkein “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” - Martin Buber jayolsonimprov.com
May 24th
6 tags
WatchWatch
IDEO CEO Tim Brown on creativity & play. (via tamaratumbls) jayolsonimprov.com
May 23rd
9 tags
Friends near and far, a little help?
  I am offering the new Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, improv training for Chicago city employees of all levels - free of charge. Follow me on Twitter @jay_olson and please also Tweet Mayor @rahmemanuel telling him what a great idea it is to empower Chicago with new ideas about teamwork, creativity and flexibilty. What if he says yes? And then other cities follow his lead? And states? I...
May 20th
2 notes
5 tags
“The key skill of the innovator is error recovery not failure avoidance.”
– Randy Nelson, Pixar (via jonathanmoore)
May 16th
69 notes
8 tags
May 13th
2 tags
Get up on this, improv land! wluera: If you haven’t heard, submissions are open for this year’s Boston Improv Festival in September - www.bostonimprovfest.com.
May 13th
1 note
6 tags
May 11th
10 notes
listening to "Beastie Boys - Egg Raid On Mojo... →
May 7th
listening to "Mel McDaniel - Louisiana Saturday... →
May 7th
2 tags
May 5th
3 tags
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our...”
– Mark Twain (via The Wolf)
May 4th
101 notes
8 tags
“Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the...”
– Chauncey Depew
May 4th
1 note
8 tags
May 3rd
12 tags
Two Quote Tuesday / What do John Keats & Muhammad...
  “Though a quarrel in the streets is a thing to be hated, the energies displayed in it are fine; the commonest man shows a grace in his quarrel.” - John Keats “There are no pleasures in a fight but some of my fights have been a pleasure to win.” - Muhammad Ali jayolsonimprov.com
May 3rd
6 tags
“Wake up, America. The real threat to the United States’s continued superpower...”
– Play Power: How to Turn Around Our Creativity Crisis – an excellent read by Lara Seargeant Richardson in The Atlantic (via curiositycounts)
May 2nd
79 notes
April 2011
20 posts
10 tags
WatchWatch
One from the way-back machine. Cathcart & Olson. Austin, TX. 2007
Apr 29th
1 note
6 tags
HIGH FIVE!
Welcome and thanks for following! Glad to have you. 5846 started following you sincerelydouglass started following you  early-onset-of-night started following you zucchini-bikini started following you  fuckyeahcanislupus started following you    rvacomedy started following you  thebitmonorail started following you 
Apr 28th
13 tags
Apr 27th
11 notes
10 tags
Two Quote Tuesday ZOMBIE EDITION!
    “The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.” - Aristotle “There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe “RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrr…” - Willful Ignorance on the Attack
Apr 26th
Apr 23rd
5 tags
Holy Crap I Got Old!
Wow. I have aged a lot since these photos were taken. Melissa looks exactly the same, though. Except with extra mommy glow. If you asked I would tell you these shows happened just a year or two ago. I guess not. I’ve been in the game a while. Still taking all challengers. ;o)
Apr 21st
12 tags
Apr 20th
13 tags
Two Quote Tuesday / What do W.H. Auden & Friedrich...
  “Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.” - W. H. Auden “Perhaps it is I who knows best why man alone laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
Apr 19th
2 notes
5 tags
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct... →
Apr 18th
7 tags
“Nothing we say to each other is innocent of emotional manipulation.”
– Del Close (via rvacomedy)
Apr 18th
6 notes
8 tags
Apr 13th
296 notes
10 tags
“There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among...”
– John Keats
Apr 13th
8 tags
Two Quote Tuesday / What do the 3rd Earl Russell...
  “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are so confident while the intelligent are full of doubt “ - Bertrand Russell “The world is out its mind with stupidity and the worship of stupidity.” - Sean Penn  
Apr 12th
7 tags
Apr 11th
26,481 notes