Trevor Strong on Creativity, Humour, and Tom Lehrer's Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

In this episode of Re-Creative, Mark and Joe talk to Trevor Strong—writer, educator, and long-standing member of the musical comedy troupe The Arrogant Worms. Trevor introduces the lads to the musical comedy gem “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” by Tom Lehrer, a huge influence on Trevor’s own work. Trevor points out the song’s “gleeful” subversion of innocence as a template for his own (occasionally dark) repertoire.

Trevor holds a PhD in Education. For his thesis, he explored the concept of “creativity” from a historical perspective, which yielded surprising results. Trevor walks the boys through it; it turns out that creativity is really quite a modern concept.

It happens that Trevor himself is extremely creative, his work with The Arrogant Worms but a fraction of his output. His recent solo album, too many songs about cats, is a perfect example. He recorded it all in his own home, using a table as a drum and performing all the cat parts himselfs because (and we think we have this right) he was too cheap to hire a real cat.

Re-Creative is a co-production of Donovan Street Press Inc. in association with MonkeyJoy Press.

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