Celebrate Creativity

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Celebrate Creativity

George Bartley

541 episodes

1 day ago

Send us a text NARRATOR (WARM, INVITING) Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and Conversations with Toys, our after-hours visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Toys and Childhood Artifacts— where the lights are low, the alarms are set, and words wait quietly on the shelves… until someone notices them. Narrator And we see the action figure of William Shakespeare - complete with quill - surrounded by a group of alphabet blocks. He continues to talk about his life and literary career. Shakespeare Ma...

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All content for Celebrate Creativity is the property of George Bartley and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.

Send us a text NARRATOR (WARM, INVITING) Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and Conversations with Toys, our after-hours visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Toys and Childhood Artifacts— where the lights are low, the alarms are set, and words wait quietly on the shelves… until someone notices them. Narrator And we see the action figure of William Shakespeare - complete with quill - surrounded by a group of alphabet blocks. He continues to talk about his life and literary career. Shakespeare Ma...

Show more...

Episodes (20/541)

Celebrate Creativity

Bard's Curtain Call

Send us a text NARRATOR (WARM, INVITING) Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and Conversations with Toys, our after-hours visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Toys and Childhood Artifacts— where the lights are low, the alarms are set, and words wait quietly on the shelves… until someone notices them. Narrator And we see the action figure of William Shakespeare - complete with quill - surrounded by a group of alphabet blocks. He continues to talk about his life and literary career. Shakespeare Ma...

1 day ago

33 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Plague & Playhouse

Send us a text Shakespeare Hello Mr. Smith. This is William Shakespeare the action figure, and I would be most remiss if I did not continue my narrative regarding my education in Stratford. You see, like many boys of my station, I probably attended the King’s New School in Stratford. It has been so long that I must admit I am a bit foggy. The curriculum would have been heavy on Latin, rhetoric, and the classics. Day after day, I was been drilled in the works of Ovid, Seneca, and Plautu...

2 days ago

26 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Quill After Midnight

Send us a text Night watchman I must admit that my first impression of the William Shakespeare action figure was - what is all the big deal. I even have a background in Shakespeare acting - though I don't have a job with that training. But if you look at the William Shakespeare action figure - even though he has a scroll and quiil - your first reaction is what is all the fuss for? Narrator As the narrator of this podcast episode, my suggestion is to look at the history of the character...

3 days ago

21 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Send us a text NARRATOR (WARM, INVITING) Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and Conversations with Toys, our after-hours visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Toys and Childhood Artifacts— where the lights are low let's get the disclaimer out of the way this podcast behind every line of Shakespeare behind every Erie sentence from Poe behind every every the alarms are set, and words wait quietly on the shelves… until someone notices them. NARRATOR (WARM, WRAP-UP): The alphabet b...

4 days ago

18 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Alphabet Blocks

Send us a text NARRATOR (WARM, INVITING) Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and Conversations with Toys, our after-hours visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Toys and Childhood Artifacts— where the lights are low let's get the disclaimer out of the way this podcast behind every line of Shakespeare behind every Erie sentence from Poe behind every every the alarms are set, and words wait quietly on the shelves… until someone notices them. NARRATOR (WARM, WRAP-UP): The alphabet b...

5 days ago

18 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

The Pillow Everyone Cries Into

Send us a text NARRATOR (GEORGE): The Toy Museum isn’t all hard plastic and sharp corners. Some shelves are quieter. Softer. Places where the edges give way and the labels blur a little. Tonight, the Night Watchman has wandered away from Barbie’s high heels and Ken’s molded hair into a part of the museum that feels more like a pillow aisle. [Footsteps slow. There’s a soft rustle, like fabric against fabric.] NIGHT WATCHMAN: Okay. This… is new to me. NARRATOR: The shelf in front of him doe...

6 days ago

18 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Click, Click, Bamboo

Send us a text NARRATOR (GEORGE): The Toy Museum remembers everything. It remembers the first teddy bear sewn by an immigrant. It remembers Barbie striking a pose at a 1959 toy fair. It remembers dragon trucks that eat cars and tiny supermarkets where children practice being grownups. But tonight, the museum is thinking in rectangles. Bricks. Studs. The quiet click that has become one of the most recognizable sounds in the toy world. The Night Watchman has wandered into the construction win...

1 week ago

19 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Send us a text The Toy Museum has its own kind of gravity. Once you’ve visited a shelf, it tugs at you. Tonight, the Night Watchman finds himself back in the Barbie gallery. Same pink glow. Same tiny shoes. But the spotlight is different. It’s shifted to the left. [Soft click of a case light turning on.] NARRATOR: Onto a smiling man, molded hair, permanent tan, and a wardrobe that never quite decides what he does for a living. NIGHT WATCHMAN: All right, then. Your turn. KEN (slightly n...

1 week ago

21 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Barbie and the Closet

Send us a text NARRATOR (GEORGE): The Toy Museum never really sleeps. It sighs. It settles. It adjusts its labels. But somewhere, between the glass cases and the security cameras, the night gets… strange. Previously, the Night Watchman met a bear who smelled like home. Tonight, he’s walked into a different kind of dream— one made of high heels, sequins, and an alarming number of tiny pink shoes. [Footsteps slow. A light switch clicks. A faint, glamorous “whoosh” of spotlights.] NIGHT WATCH...

1 week ago

25 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Aisle 3: Imagination

Send us a text NARRATOR (GEORGE): The Toy Museum KNOWS how to roar. It has dragons that eat cars, tiny metal racers that dare gravity, and shelves of toys that glow and beep and shout. But sometimes, the museum does something much quieter. It turns the dullest errands of adult life into a stage for children. Tonight, the Night Watchman has wandered away from speeding cars and plastic teeth, into a corner of the museum that feels… suspiciously like a grocery store. [Footsteps sl...

1 week ago

25 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Speed, Teeth, and Two Lanes

Send us a text NARRATOR (GEORGE): The Toy Museum has currents, like an ocean. Soft shelves, hard shelves, loud shelves, quiet ones. Last night, the Night Watchman nearly fell asleep leaning against a Squishmallow— no-questions-asked softness in pastel colors. Tonight, the current drags him somewhere else. Somewhere harder. Sharper. Louder. Footsteps NARRATOR: He’s entered the vehicles area. Rows of tiny cars. Trucks. Motorcycles. Helicopters frozen mid-rescue, race cars mid-victory lap. A...

1 week ago

18 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Hot Potato with a Bird

Send us a text NARRATOR (GEORGE): The Toy Museum has its quiet corners— where Squishmallows wait to be hugged, and where a teddy bear smells like home. Tonight is not one of those corners. Tonight, the Night Watchman has wandered into the game aisle— the place where toys don’t just sit and get held. They demand players. They demand rules. They demand noise. [Footsteps on carpet, then a slightly hollo w thunk as he bumps a shelf.] NARRATOR: Board games stare at Mr. Smith from every...

1 week ago

17 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Conversations with Teddy

Send us a text Ebenezer is back. This is the second night for Ebeneezer Smith as the new night watchmen at the Metropolitan Museum of toys and childhood artifacts KEY in lock. DOOR opening.] EBENEZER (muttering to himself): Well, I’m here. Again. This time I doubt I’ll meet any human beings I can talk with… The toys might be a different story. But honestly? I don’t understand what happened last night. I have no idea if that conversation with Slinky was a one-time...

1 week ago

22 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Conversations with Slinky

Send us a text Hello my name is Ebeneezer Smith Thank you for staying with me.(mutters to himself) All right. Let’s see what kind of neighbors I’ve got. There is a set of plastic building bricks. There is a board game whose box I remember arguing over with my cousins. And in the “Comfort and Companions” section, a bear that looks suspiciously like something I once slept with every night until I was far too old to admit it. [SOUND: Footsteps slow.] And I admit this is the kind of atmosphere t...

1 week ago

21 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Museum Interview

Send us a text Our story tonight doesn’t start in a toy store. No bright aisles. No sales. No blinking “Buy One, Get One Free” signs. Instead, we begin on a quiet city street, just after closing time, in front of an old stone building most people walk past without ever truly seeing. During the day, it’s a respectable institution: The Metropolitan Museum of Toys and Childhood Artifacts. But tonight… it’s dark. The front doors are locked. The lights are dim. And a slightly nervous job applic...

2 weeks ago

18 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Pre Conversations with Toys

Send us a text Now today’s episode is a little different. Usually, we spend our time tracking the lives of composers, musicians, and artists—people whose names end up in history books, or on album covers, or carved into theater walls. We talk about how they changed the sound of a century, or rewired what pop music could be, or turned their lives into performance. But for a while now, I’ve been quietly working on something a bit… stranger. For December, I’m moving us into a different kind o...

2 weeks ago

26 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Ryan’s Rocket Man

Send us a text In this series, we’ve been spending time with artists who didn’t just make hits — they rewired popular music itself. Some of them crashed. Some of them burned out. Some of them never got old enough to figure out who they might have become. In the previous episode, we talked about Michael Jackson — a man whose genius was wrapped in pressure, pain, and dependency, and whose life ended in an overdose in a rented mansion in Los Angeles. Today’s story easily could have ended the ...

2 weeks ago

30 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

The Price of Being Michael

Send us a text Today, we’re going to spend some time with a figure who shaped pop music, dance, music videos, and the idea of celebrity itself—only to become a tragic warning about what happens when that level of fame collides with a fragile human body and mind. Michael Joseph Jackson was born August 29, 1958, in Gary, Indiana—a working-class steel town in the Midwest. He was the eighth of ten children in the Jackson family, packed into a small house where money was tight, tempers could be h...

2 weeks ago

24 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

The Carter Code

Send us a text Today, I want to put two lives—and two mythologies—side by side. Not as gossip. Not as tabloid spectacle. As a question: What happens when two Black artists rise from a Houston salon and a Brooklyn housing project to a place where they can rewire the business, the sound, and the story of popular music—and do it as a partnership? Let’s start in Houston. Beyoncé Giselle Knowles grows up in a middle-class Black family. Her mother, Tina, runs a salon. Her father, Mathew, works i...

2 weeks ago

19 minutes

Celebrate Creativity

Radical Control

Send us a text In this current series, we’ve been living in the neighborhood of giants—artists who didn’t just have hits, but re-wired what popular music could be. Today… someone different again. A man who refused categories, ignored rules, blurred gender lines, shredded guitars, whispered falsettos, wrote anthems for other people in his spare time, and turned a small Midwestern city into the center of a new universe. Prince. Not “Prince the nostalgia act.” Prince the problem. Prince the...

2 weeks ago

21 minutes