Creativity

Even in choppy waters, recruiters are still angling for the perfect job candidate. But employers don't have the time or resources to sift through all the applications churned up by the recession. California's unemployment rate hit 10.5% in February -- the highest in nearly 26 years -- while the national rate stands at 8.1%. To boost your chances of getting plucked, you'll need a top-notch resume.

What do the strapless bra, Bugs Bunny and the Cobb salad have in common? Along with Barbie, Hula Hoops and the latest version of the Volkswagen Beetle, they were all "born" in Southern California's creative infrastructure that generates billions of dollars annually for the area economy.

TARSEM \o7SINGH \f7has made a lucrative living for 17 years as a sought-after director of commercials, videos and the creepy 2000 horror hit, "The Cell." As he told me, more in awe than in boast, he once made more money in one day shooting a commercial than his father did in 30 years as an aircraft engineer in India. And what did Tarsem do with most of that dough? Breaking the cardinal mantra of Hollywood, he spent it making a movie called "The Fall."

In "Mad Men," AMC's much-lauded series set in a 1960 New York advertising agency, Don Draper, the agency's creative director, gives advice to Peggy, the ambitious new woman as she tries to think up ideas for her first ad campaign. "Stop thinking about it," he tells her, "and suddenly an idea will pop up." The line was just one of many references creator Matt Weiner used to show how creativity works in a commercial world.

LIKE so many other people in America, I'm working on a groundbreaking book. Never mind the precise subject, but trust me: I've identified a narrow crack on the social science shelf, accessed a number of little-known theories, and I plan to have my moment in the sun. OK, few of the actual \o7ideas\f7 in this book will be original. I mean, how could I hope to have an original idea? Not with 150 million-plus blogs churning out ideas 24/7, not with 2.

To a San Francisco-based think tank, life begins at 60. So does eligibility for its new cash-laden national prize, being announced today, that rewards Americans who work to solve society's problems and encourages them not to slow down with age.

What would you wish for if you found a rainbow-colored rock that told you to make a wish, then granted every one? Would you go for world peace, a million bucks? Or like the kids in "Shorts," would you wish for a castle and a moat protected by snakes and alligators, not realizing the complications that might crop up? Me, I'd wish that writer-director Robert Rodriguez, who brought us the finely wrought darkness of "Sin City," would set aside the kid stuff and get back to the promise of his earlier work . . . right after world peace and a million bucks.

Re "Patron saint of distracted students," Current, April 8 When I started to read Walter Isaacson's article, I was expecting the usual diatribe accusing teachers of stifling our students' creativity. No doubt the answer to cold fusion is sitting in my sixth-period class, and I am too concerned with taking attendance, grading papers and attending parent conferences to notice it, assuming I even cared. Well, I was wrong. I now see what I believe to be the author's point: If Einstein is sitting in my class, his genius will eventually become evident.

Theatre/Theater has moved several times since it first opened in Hollywood almost 30 years ago, yet under the tenacious tutelage of founders Jeff Murray and Nicolette Chaffey, it remains a consistent producing entity in an era when start-up theaters flare and fade like fool's fire in the swampland. The theater's 1987 production of Del Shores' "Daddy's Dyin', Who's Got the Will?" played for two years to turn-away crowds and was subsequently made into a film. Now the company turns back the clock in a remounting of Shores' regional comedy.

Tacky, graphic wallpaper ends up on a fashion runway in the form of a purse. A watercolor by Cecil Beaton is reincarnated as the print of a bias-cut cocktail dress. In the fragile ecosystem that is fashion -- to use the words of one participant in the Ready to Share conference Saturday at USC -- it is difficult to get away from the idea that everything old becomes new again.