Neil Gaiman’s Commencement Address

Beloved fiction writer and occasional songwriter Neil Gaiman just turned in one of the best music/art-related commencement speeches of the year so far. Addressing the class of 2012 at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts this week, Gaiman retraced his own unpredictable career (or non-career, as he explains) path with all of the insight, humor, and wisdom you could want from one of the great creative minds around. What’s more, one of his key emphases arrives with a timely parallel to a post-1971 theme we’ve heard from John Baldessari — whose Tom Waits-narrated documentary made our week: “Make good art.” That’s the blunt advice Gaiman offers on repeat, recalling the former’s “I will not make any more boring art” motif. The best part, though, might be Gaiman’s knack for illustrating the oft-discussed lesson of embracing inevitable mistakes. For example, he once misspelled the name Caroline in an e-mail, giving him the idea for a character named Coraline. There are too many other quips of note to list, so without further ado, watch the a whole thing above (via Flavorwire).