sturchd and that's why we need to realize on this area of the back hemisphere which is good at drawing together distantly related ideas. >> rose: is another word for drawing together distantly related ideas able to see connections. >> johnson, creativity is just connecting things, that is really all it is about, it is a new connection to old ideas, and when you need a big new idea, it is going to come from old ideas that are even further apart that no one else can see the connection between them, no one else can bind them together. >> rose: which relationship between bob dylan, creativity and like a rolling stone? >> i begin the book by telling the story that happened in may of 1965, when bob dylan game p gave up on singing and song writing, he was on this grueling tour and didn't know how to reinvent himself, he thought he had no songs left to sing he didn't want to be a folksinger and didn't know what to write next so he moved to woodstock and didn't take his guitar he was going to paint and write poetry and done with the music bids and there for a couple of

days when all of a sudden he feels this familiar feeling, the itch of words as he put it and like a ghost just gives you what to say. and then he starts scribbling and his hand isn't moving to for the next several hours it is like he is vomiting forth associations and very visceral verb. and. >> rose: he would be prone to use. >> and then he takes a look at these 25 pages of notes he scrawled late at night in woodstock all by himself and what he sees in these notes are the lyrics to like a rolling stone. the very next week he goes into the cramped space of columbia records and on the fourth take they record those six punts of raw music that would revolutionize rock 'n' roll. >> and he understood it? >> >> rose: after it came out? >> yes and this is a defining feature of movements of insight that makes them so mysterious as soon as the answer pops in our head we know this is the answer. >> rose: you recognize it for what it is. >> you don't have to double-check the math or reread the lyrics you know this is a solution you have been searching for. >> rose: wow. so suppose that, suppose you

know you know that you have hit a roadblock and you have hit a wall. >> yes the. >> rose: what ought you to do find a creative way around a wall. >> this was quite surprising to me, because i think we live in this day and age that worships attention. >> rose: right. >> all about the focus. >> rose: focus. >> so when you hit a hard problem you assume what you need to do is the drink a triple espresso and chug red bull, to find some way to increase your attention to chain your self to the desk and that the turns out to be exactly backwards, what scientists found is people who are in a relaxed state of mind are much more likely have a moment of insight. >> i was out running in the morning and driving, commuting in my car. >> in the shower is a popular one. >> rose: hanging out on a sunday morning, that kind of thing. >> yes. and what is it about that? >> well, because when we are not relaxed, when we are chained to our desk our attention is out here, it is consumed by the noise of the world, so we are thinking about the problem itself, so you go back to those associate problems and talking about pine, crab, and soft there

is probably a wrong answer we can't get passed it is not until we are relaxed in the shower or on a jog or drive in the car that we finally, that we are finally able to turn the spotlight of attention inward and we hear the quiet invoice voice from the back of the head giving us the answer, either the voice has been there for hours, days or week we just haven't taken a moment to listen so that's why relax haitian is so important, the larger lesson here, i think it gets back to this wonderful line of einstein that creativity is the residue of wasted time. when you need a moment of insight you really have to make time to waste time, and this is, this seems paradoxical but the answer will only arrive after you stop searching for it. >> so there is also milton glazer what did we learn from him, a great designer. >> he has this wonderful slogan about the studio door which is art is work, and it would be wonderful if the advice we can give to everyone is that, you know, the solution to every creative problem is take a long hot shower to go for a walk on the beach, to, you know, drink a beer. that is, of course, not how it

works in the real world. when you talk to creative people they often begin with their romantic breakthroughs the epiphanies that when you least expect it but when you press them they talk about all the hard work that came after and all of the iterations and drafts all of the frustration and failures. >> rose: and also their curious acuriosity, we really ta large number of artists that just go to the gallery or go to the museum and just look. i mean, it is a studying process for them,. >> it is about realizing that creativity is not a straight line, that it really is about just being open-minded, it is about letting yourself be exposed to a lot of ideas, even if you don't know how they will fit in. seeking diverse output and you see this mirrored again and again in the literature. people who spend time with lots of people who aren't like them, that according to one measure, three times more innovative with predictable social networks so it is plate, it is great to spend time with people who don't think like us. >> what do jazz pianists have? >> this is i think one for me

one of the big mysteries i was interested in when i began thinking about this book, is you watch videos of john colonel tran and this he steps out on to a stage and beauty powers powz out of him for 45 minutes or 60 minutes and he just impro vicing he has no idea what he is going to play and yet he knows he can invent it, and this is -- >> rose: could he duplicate it the next at that night? >> he could create a whole new kind of beauty in next night and this is totally awe inspiring and, you know, ther there is soe really interesting new work which has begun to deconstruct the improv process, this spontaneous creativity and what the scientists have discovered at johns hopkins when you put a pianist and ask them to improvise they began by inhibiting their inhibitions they deact strait a part of the part of the brain behind the forehead and closely associated with things like self-control, impulse control that keeps us from eating all of the ice cream in the fridge and allows us to do the first thing that comes to our mind so it is a pretty important part of the brain, but

it can also hold us back because it makes us worried about what we are saying, it is the voice telling us not to do something and when you need to improvise for an hour on stage, when you heed the let yourself go, you need to get out of your head and you need to turn that voice off so in a variable to just inhibit their inhibitions on command, you know, that itself, that act of deactivation takes years of practice, it looks easy on stage when they do it but that is only because they work so hard. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> rose: funding for charlie rose has been provided by the coca-cola company, supporting this program since 2002. and american express. additional funding provided by these funders. and by bloomberg. a provider of multimedia ws and information services worldwide. be more, pbs. tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. first of tonight, and look at the evolution of the american automotive industry with a pulitzer prize-winning author paul ingrassia.

he is out with a new book about some of the most iconic cars. the book is called "engines of change." also tonight, mira sorvino is here. in addition to being an actress, she works with the u.n. in an effort to combat human trafficking. paul ingrassia and mira sorvino, coming up right now. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

tavis: paul ingrassia is a former bureau chief for "the wall street journal. he is now with reuters, and he has a new book, "engines of change: a history of the american dream in 15 cars." let me get your sense in now detroit is going to factor in the race for the white house between now and november. >> i think it will be important, michigan and the upper midwest, but the obama administration really saved in the automotive industry. that will be a plus. there are a lot of americans that are still angry about the bailouts, the wall street bailout, that sort of thing, so it is going to cut both ways. i think on balance, it will be a plus for the president. tavis: what is your sense of how

mitt romney has played this, particularly given the role that his father played in detroit years ago. >> i think he is trying to draw a fine line here, perhaps too fine, tavis. he says he was opposed of the bailout but wanted to say detroit. if you go back to 2008, 2009, there really was not any private money to come out and put into the automotive industry. the money would have had to come from the banks and private equity people, and nobody was coming forward to put up the money. tavis: when you say president obama say to detroit with his plan, how is it, as we speak? >> it is doing pretty well. sales are good. profit is good. all the companies are still around. you have general motors, ford, and chrysler. what they did is they closed factories they did not need and changed some of the work rules in the factories, and that was a

big deal. and used to be that you could only change a light bulb, for example, if your job classification was electrician, so even if you're qualified to change in light of, you had to wait for a guy from the other side of the factory to come and do that sort of thing, and that sort of thing is pretty much gone now. i do not think that detroit is going to blow the japanese or korean car companies out of here. you have a more balanced situation, but they are holding their own. tavis: innovation is another. where does detroit rank now with creativity, innovation, style, for that kind of thing? >> well, it depends on what you are talking about really. picking one area. getting consumer electronics into automobiles. electronics making the driving experience easier and more enjoyable and that sort of thing. for example, ford for several

years has had a voice recognition system, where you can basically give your radio or your cd player or york heater and air conditioner a verbal command. it is not perfect, no doubt about that, but i think ford has really led the way in getting smart consumer electronics into automobiles. alternative engine technology is more of a sort of balanced game. toyota has the previous. there are other cars out there. there are hybrids. gm has the volt, but the truth is, they are not selling that well these days, the hybrids, and the price of gasoline really has to go to $6 per gallon, $7 per gallon before it makes sense for most people. tavis: we will get to the previous in a moment. that is not a shout out to toyota. these are just one of the cars you talked about in "engines of

change," one of those is the toyota prius, so we will come back to that. you mentioned a moment ago the notion of changing a light bulb, and what you're really talking about were union rules. we were talking around that, essentially. what is your take on how unions have been impacted by what has happened in detroit in the last few years, and whether there has been, my language, not yours, irreparable harm to detroit? >> i am not sure there was irreparable harm done to unions from the bailout of the automotive industry. the united autoworkers union only has about one-third of the membership it had back in 1970, tavis. what i think has happened here really is there has been more responsible behavior by management and union alike, to really forge a more sensible working relationship in the last

few years, ever since the bankruptcies of general motors and chrysler. just one example. 1.5 years or so ago, several workers at a chrysler factory went outside during lunch hour and it came back in and started making cars, and they were fired. the union decided not to battle that. that is a big change from the past. tavis: is the worst behind us? i asked that because there are, as you know, some economists who are concerned that the economy may be in danger of a double-dip recession. if the economy goes into a double-dip recession, that would impact on detroit. is the worst behind at the moment? >> it may have to get back before it gets different. these companies are poised to be profitable or to at least break even. much, much lower sales volumes

than there were five years ago. that said, i do not think it is going to be clear sailing. i do think the worst has passed in that it will not get as bad as 2008, 2009, but there is a lot of trouble going on in europe, as you know, with the euro zone and whether the currency will stay together there, the euro, and a lot of that has an impact on the american economy including detroit. general motors and ford have huge businesses in europe, and chrysler is joined at the hip with the yacht. fiat is a european company. >> -- joined at the hip with fiat's -- fiat. tavis: the industry is starting to rebound, but from what i have read, the size of the city of detroit and the people there, obviously, the industry is made up of people. many of them have lost their jobs. any week on how this impact in

the industry is having an effect on the city? >> well, the city is being left behind, quite frankly, but i am not sure it is the industry's fault. in fact, i do not at all think it is the industry's fault. decades of financial and civic mismanagement. you had the past mayor in jail. you have the past city council chairman in jail. i mean, you have a lot of really bad stuff. the schools have been a failure. a couple of years ago, a very wealthy individual, donating $200 million to the school system to start charter schools, and the teachers' union and the school board there vetoed it, so i think detroit has had some real problems, and i think it will be awhile before the city of detroit can break out. the problems are not unlike that in greece, a country living on largess of some units of government, and it really has to get out of the basement.

that being said, there is some hope. in the downtown area, there are a small group of 20 somethings moving in. it is not without hope. there has to be a fundamental change. i think the current mayor is really in the right place on this. tavis: we will see what happens in detroit in the coming days. i hope there is a renaissance as the automotive industry is starting to rebound. inside "engines of change," i referenced earlier that the toyota prius made your list. let us know what you're trying to make us understand about these 15 cards. >> i was trying to dig the automobile as a lens through which to view the ebb and flow of american culture, if you will, tavis. american culture is sort of a

longstanding tug-of-war between the practical, the pretentious, the ordinary, and the ostentatious. and all of these swings, our national psyche is reflectedd in these 15 cards. for example, the first two and the book, the model t, it was a very practical car. henry ford. it was the first people's car. henry ford's a favorite joke was about the farmer who wanted to be buried in his model t ford because the car had gotten him out of every hole he had ever been in, and that says a lot. the model t could go anywhere, but it was not stylish. it had 20 years. by the early 1920's, you could buy it for as little as $260. after 20 years, people wante style, a little sex appeal in the cars, and the roaring '20s came along. gm had won it to come out, the

first yuppie car, the first mass-market designer are done by harvey. you remember the old introduction to the family show, the sitcom on television in the 1970's, the fourth line was "our old lesalle ran great." archie bunker. you have the chevrolet corvette introduced in 1953, the same have to started playboy magazine, that elvis started recording music, and you have a whole generation of americans that have grown up knowing a depression and then more, and the war was finally over, . war ended in 1953, and this whole generation of americans wanted to let loose a little bit. and then you have the cadillac with the biggest tail fins ever. believe it or not, they were sold as safety devices.

it was astonishing to find out that they were called directional stabilizers. i know, you could not make it up, could you? that is the really pretentious thing. and then as the cadillac tail fins reached their peak, we swing back to the practical with the volkswagen beetle and the microbus, and then the cars starting in germany in the pre- world war two era, they were the cars of hitler, and then in the postwar era, they became the hipaa icon. you move further, and you have a mustang which captured the whole kennedy thing, the use era, -- the youth ear, and then you had the deloreans. they were all about the mustang, and then came the darker part of the 1960's. you have an urban riots.

you had the rolling stones as opposed to the beatles, and you had the pontiac gto, the growling thing as opposed to the mustang. tavis: i will close on that node. so the present day, the pre-as is the most current card to make the list. what does that say, the hybrid nature of the pre-is, what does that say about it? >> the pre-is in a way is a reaction to the gas guzzling suv's, which are also in the book. -- the previous -- prius is also in the block as a reaction to the gas guzzling. on 100 miles an hour in his prius, steve wazniacki, the founder of apple computer.

they asked him if he was on 105, and he said not true, 104. they said to him, how did you think of it? what about going 104 m.p.h.? he shot back that was not bad. "it is kind of like mind, ." , this is a guy that has a homer and -- a hummer and a prius in the same garage. tavis: been to have you back on the program. >> thank you. always a pleasure. tavis: up next, oscar-winning actress mira sorvino/ stay with us. mira sorvino is back on the program. she can be seen in a new film hitting theaters this month. it is called "union square," and

here is a scene. [knock on door] >> oh. [knock on door] >> jenny? of, my god. hi. this is so crazy. i did not think you would be year, but you are here. this is amazing. what are you doing here? we have to forget what never happened. whatever you said, whenever i said, get over it. i do not want more years to go by like this, all right? it will not happen again.

ok. it up, my god. >> look at this place. it is like an office or something. i had no idea that you lived here. >> with bill on facebook put >> by friend -- with a bill on facebook >> i friended you, but you did not. >> they have been estranged for three years, have come to the city to deliver a message, but i think i am bringing this letter to agrobusiness address, and i do not think she is going to be there, she is in california, she is really out of touch with me,

and she is there, and i am having a breakdown with a boy friend who is breaking up with me, and it is like the apocalypse or me, the end of the world, and as soon as i see my sister, i change on a dime, and i am happy to see her. tavis: ups and downs. that is a good description of that clip. how would you describe this movie? >> it is about a reunion of two people from the same family who have not been able to get along in the past because of some deep issues but ultimately love each other, and it is kind of like that thing that you cannot live with them, you cannot shoot them, so the third way is you have to find a way to love them. it is a very funny movie. a good balance with drama. tavis: we were discussing before we came on the set about how this was shot. when i say the way, i am talking about the location, the number of days, the camera equipment

that was used. i will let you tell the story. it just speaks to the fact that when you have good material, you can form go all of the bells and whistles and make the story of the story line and the narrative and the rest of humanity is all there. you can make it work even if you are shooting over a number of days in one location, and we will let you tell how it got shot. >> it was actually scheduled for 10 days. i thought it was 15, and then it was 12, and she is an amazing director, and they felt very confident that they could make this movie with an incredibly micro budget and a skeleton crew and the camera, and basically looks like a still camera, but it is a video camera, and other films have been shot on it. they put in action shots and stuff. but it allowed us to walk three

union square park and film scenes, and people did not know we were making a movie. they thought it was somebody taking a picture, and the people walking around us became part of the scene because they did not know we were making a movie. it is sort of guerrilla style. it gives this maybe, i think, a real sense of organic urgency and pacing, like real life but not like a reality television show. everything feels very spontaneous, and the camera is like a fly on the wall, a person watching things, another person in the room. it is a little bit bumpy, because the focus goes back and forth, but i think it works probably for this story which is, as you said, just about the people and about their story together and their odd personalities, and the fact is we are both lying all of the time. you find that as we go along the we are hiding big, big secrets from ourselves and our loved

ones, and there is something about the low budget and the small sets, ltd. vacations, it just kind of work. it feels real. tavis: this is shot in and around union square, so you guys did not go further. >> it was all in a 10 block radius. a lot of it is shot in the apartment, which you saw. a lot of it is shot at union square and the stores around it. tavis: to your point, it works for the film that it would shot in the way but it would shot, but how does a challenge or for that matter bring a different type of freedom to an actor when you are shooting this, you do not even know you are shooting, as you said it is organic, but how did it work for an actor? >> the page county was about 8 to 10 pages per day, you had to have that dialogue and that scene down. you had to come ready and loaded for bear in the morning, so you

have to come in just with all of this. i cannot describe it except i had to be on my game every second, because there was not a step and despair. maybe we did two or three takes, and then it was moving on to the next thing. you do these things where you do not cut in for coverage back and forth. a lot of it goes on for several pages, and you have to be just right there, but in a certain way because of that adrenaline, i think it gets free year. i do not know. it is not the boring part of shooting on the conventional movie set where they have the budget and time to cover a scene six ways to sunday. the traveling, the establishing, the medium close-up, the close- up, the over the show, -- shoulder, and by the time you get to the end of the scene, you have done those lines all day long, and maybe you have lost that momentum, and this