Another good one from Jessica Hagy.
posted on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 at 13:30 | permanent link | view comments
Politics and the English Language
A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.
Anyone? Anyone? George Orwell, 1946 [link]. Read on:
As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug. The attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy. It is easier — even quicker, once you have the habit — to say In my opinion it is not an unjustifiable assumption that than to say I think. If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don’t have to hunt about for the words; you also don’t have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences since these phrases are generally so arranged as to be more or less euphonious.
My own experience tells me that bad writing is always a result of one of two factors: 1) the author is uneducated and doesn’t know how to write or 2) the author is lazy.
The first problem can be solved with practice and hard work: anyone can learn to write well if they’ll care enough to read what they’ve written and change it until the words are right. Good elementary and secondary school teachers who understand and can teach this are as angels from heaven. The second problem is solved when the intended audience stops reading and goes elsewhere.
posted on Tue, 25 Aug 2009 at 10:23 | permanent link | view comments
Pizzeria Seven Twelve revisited
I think this is my fourth time visiting Pizzeria Seven Twelve. Let me summarize this place in as few words as possible:
Exquisite, subtle, unique.
Yet again I have found here new and delightful flavors and textures. Next time you’re thinking that you’re worth every bit as much as the good food you consume, do yourself a favor and go there (disclosure: I have no financial interest in P712—I only hope it survives the recession so that I can continue to eat there). P712 uses locally farmed ingredients, so you’re also helping out our local economy directly.
Today’s menu:
Pizza: Spec, soppressata, garlic, mozzarella; dessert: Buttermilk panna cotta (with cherries).
I’ve never tasted anything like it. I love this place.
posted on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 at 14:40 | permanent link | view comments
[Note: You can skip the next 6 paragraphs or so to the mildly amusing anecdote if you don’t like my seemingly endless diatribes. If you don’t like my mildly amusing anecdotes either, you can jump right to the final 4 or 5 paragraphs and enjoy my grandiose moralizing.]
When I bought my scooter last March, a lot of people asked about it. What kind is it? Is it fast? What kind of mileage do you get? Where’s the clutch? Can I ride it? (answers: “a Genuine Buddy”, “60-65 mph on a straightaway”, “90-ish mpg”, “it’s a continuous clutch—just twist and go”, and “no.”).
(a photograph of my erstwhile office)
But the best question has been, “Why did you buy that scooter and not some other kind?” I’ve mostly handwaved my way through that question with something like “I researched it for two years” yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s true that other people who have owned multiple scooters really like it, and that influenced me. There’s also the great support group and local service shop. But every major brand has its loyal following: these reasons are not completely unique to my scooter.
Not-China
In reality, you’re fairly safe with any scooter from not-China: Kymco, Honda, Yamaha, Genuine, Sym, Lambretta, Bajaj, etc. These are all good brands that have been around for a long time. The Chinese scooters you see for sale on every other corner of major thoroughfares are what the cognoscenti call “disposable scooters.” They usually offer 90 day warranties, which I’m told you’re lucky to make it through without incident. If you go to any scooter shop that’s been around for more than a year or two, you’ll find dozens of these sub-$1000 disposables in the junkyard behind the shop and none for sale in the shop itself.
The owners and mechanics of good scooter shops will tell you what the Chinese scooters are made of: $%*#@! In layman’s terms, this means they’re made of inexpensive plastic parts and poor quality, brittle metals that are not designed to last long under heat or stress. They’re the scooter equivalent pressboard furniture: it may do just fine for you if you don’t move it far or often. And keep it out of the rain.
[I’m not bagging on China. I love China (sometimes). Most of the nice things I own were assembled in or have parts from China. But Chinese-made scooters are terrible. Ride a few of them and then ride something from the list above and you’ll see what I mean. Talk to scooter mechanics, ask around. There’s a reason they’re so cheap.]
Another reason I bought a Buddy was the 2 year warranty and roadside assistance (at no extra cost). I always thought roadside assistance was for sissies. I’d never needed it for my car (I somehow always managed to find a phone and call someone), but today I was proven wrong. I am proud to say that roadside assistance is awesome.
Story time: gather ‘round!
I’m cruising north on Geneva Road this afternoon. A dump truck in the left lane and an 18-wheeler ahead of me in the right lane. The truck in my lane is drifting occasionally into the shoulder and stirring up a lot of dust and gravel. My face is being pelted with little objects, so I start to slow a little and BAM and then rat-tat-tat-tat-tat over and over. Something is making a terrible noise in my rear wheel. I slow down and pull off the road. The rat-tat-tat stops, but I dismount to see what’s going on.
Protruding from the rear tire is about a half-inch of a rusty nail. Crud. Air is already hissing from the tire, so I pull the whole thing out. Three-freaking-inches of nail. It was nearly all the way in. Crud. I think I can make it another quarter mile—maybe.
I turn on the hazard blinkers and creep along the shoulder until I get to the next gas station. I can feel the rear tire is completely flat before I get there, so I walk it from the curb to the building and park it on the sidewalk in front of the store. A nice guy on a skateboard mentions a scooter shop nearby (which isn’t there anymore actually, but he didn’t know that, so I just thanked him). We chat a little bit. Then I remember a month or so ago getting my roadside assistance card in the mail:
I call the number, and a pleasant voice asks, “Are you in a safe location?” Sweet. “You bet I am.”
In another minute she’s asked for my policy number and verified all of my information. She asks for my location and where I want it towed. I walk into the air-conditioned convenience store to get out of the 90°+ heat. The guy with the skateboard is charging his cell phone from an outlet behind the garbage can. “Things ok?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I remembered I have roadside assistance.”
“Awesome!” he says. Then he turns away to make a call now that he’s got some juice in his phone.
15 minutes later and the tow truck is there. I sign a paper saying that Larry’s Towing has my scooter. In 30 minutes the truck is on its way to The Scooter Lounge (“the best scooter shop in the universe!”). No charge for any of this—it’s all part of the package. For 2 years. It also covers car rental, but I don’t need that today (I’m hanging out at the gas station’s convenience store writing this until my wife picks me up).
Back to quality
But this essay isn’t really about scooters and flat tires. It’s about quality. There are companies that care first about what they do, and there are companies that care first about making money. Some folks think that you can do the latter without doing the former, and I think in the short term they’re often right: you can fool some of the people some of the time.
While most people care about quality in something, whether it’s the TV shows they watch or the beer they drink, many people don’t seem to care about quality in most things. They’re going to buy the cheapest things over and over, rather than wait and save up for something better. It just doesn’t matter to them.
I don’t know if there’s any correlation between people who don’t care about using quality things and people who don’t care about creating quality things (or doing quality work) but I know that people who care about making quality almost universally appreciate it in the things they use themselves: their cars, homes, food, clothing, music, furniture, plumbing, computers, software, tools, and even scooters.
This is not to say that everything we have must be the best. We make do with many things and budget constraints often force us to temper what’s important to us. But the things that are important should be of adequate quality to give satisfaction.
It’s also important to keep in mind that tastes change over time, often for the better: what was satisfying to you at one time may not satisfy you later on (e.g., making dough by hand used to be great, but a Bosch makes making bread oh-so-much more fun). Having quality nearby makes making more quality enjoyable.
posted on Wed, 22 Jul 2009 at 23:48 | permanent link | view comments
http://www.therereallyisnosecret.com/
Now get to it.
posted on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 at 14:40 | permanent link | view comments
On people who make great things
Paul Graham calls these people simply “makers”. I’m concerned with what drives people toward arete or “excellence” and how they get there.
I think the extent to which what you make is excellent depends in large part on your taste for quality and also your ability to empathize with those who will be using what you make. Can you honestly step back from your idea’s function and consider its form?
Great artists, designers, writers, programmers, architects, cooks—makers of all kinds—start with these questions in mind: How do we want this new creation to be when it’s finished? What is the effect we want to create? How do we want this to work, to feel, to behave? Great makers can see the end from the beginning, and have the ability to get to that end.
There’s a great little vignette on the Ratatouille DVD, a conversation with Brad Bird (the director) and Thomas Keller who was the chef consultant for the movie. Keller has some fascinating things to say about the art of cooking which apply to the art of making in general:
Anybody can cook. It’s just you have to have the desire, the determination, to make something that you’re going to feel proud to give to somebody, to have that emotional connection with somebody. I think you have to be emotionally attached to what you’re doing.
And the food can be so inspiring. It comes in in its raw form, and you think, “Ok, what am I going to do with this?” What are we looking at when we’re defining a new dish? We’re really looking at the end product. What do we want to see in the dish, what do we want to feel in our mouth, what do we want to smell, what do want to taste? And then we work backwards. In establishing the different techniques or the different products that we’re going to use, that will result in that end.
That’s the difference between a dreamer and a maker: any dreamer can come up with a great destination, but the true maker, the risk-taker, the artist, the entrepreneur knows how to get there (or knows the work involved and still goes) and in fact does get there. Great makers aren’t afraid to keep trying when what they’ve made isn’t right. They revise, they start over, they keep going.
Anton Ego puts it better than I can.
posted on Mon, 18 May 2009 at 23:15 | permanent link | view comments
Old Sesame Street had some class. I miss those guys…
(20 s.)
This is the version I’m teaching my kids, set to Bach’s Fugue No. 2, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II.
Bear with me here. It seems like I have to learn this every few months, but this time I’m going to write it down so carefully that I won’t forget. Probably. Anyway, I play table tennis at our local club most Wednesday nights. I learned (again) tonight that there nothing quite so powerful as playing joyfully.
Now, of course, joy cannot make up for lack of skill. You need the skill. But fear ratchets your skill level down two or three notches. When you do anything out of fear, you instantly turn the tables on yourself, and your opponent has the advantage.
Joy, or enjoyment, takes away fear. But not only does it take away fear and doubt, it also brings with it the confidence necessary to play with evenness and at the peak of your skill. You get the most out of your skill when you can play with confidence and enjoyment.
I used to confuse enjoyment with relaxation. They’re not the same. Coaches always say to a player who is afraid, “Relax!” But they should be saying, “Enjoy it!”
There is another level that I’ll call recklessness, which is playing with enjoyment untempered by care. Someone who doesn’t care can never produce anything of quality. When you’re enjoying doing something with care, you’re going to see your highest quality come out. Enjoyment is what allows you to be content with your progress and care is what makes you strive to improve.
Fear of failure, love of money, seeking prestige: all of these can also be motivators, but they’re inferior to joy and care. When you find joy in your work, whatever it is, you will have found your reason to be, and nothing is stronger than that. I think this is what Emerson meant when he said “The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.”
It’s the same in computer programming as it is with sewing as it is with cooking. Actually, it’s the same with just being. Those who find joy in what they do (and who they are), and care about what they do (and who they are), will be ever improving, and will always find satisfaction and produce the highest quality work they are capable of.
posted on Thu, 11 Dec 2008 at 00:03 | permanent link | view comments
I remember when I read David Copperfield for the first time. After I had finished it, I wept. I felt that I had learned something that I could not explain to anyone else who had not had the same experience, but that it was more important than anything I knew that I could explain.
Perhaps it wasn’t so much that I learned something (from an intellectual perspective), but something inside me had changed for the better. I was better—kinder, more compassionate, less judgemental—because I had internalized something from David’s character. I don’t want to push Dickens’ work too hard; I realize some people detest his sentimentalism, and that’s fine, but there are other works that have a similar refining effect, works that make us better somehow when we internalize them.
Some may say that as a work approaches the divine ideal, we get this kind of an effect. Some call it “art”. I’m not an expert in this by any means, but here are a few works that have had this same refining effect for me:
Dvorák’s 9th Symphony, Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pat Metheny Group’s “The Way Up”, Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, Bach’s “Mass in B Minor”, Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, Debussy’s “La Cathedrale Engloutie”, Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. A few visual art works do it as well. Your list will probably differ from mine, but I bet you have a list of works that you feel you’re a better person for having experienced.
I think there is a component about ourselves that we don’t understand well, an element capable of improvement through indirect means, and also through direct exposure to goodness and excellence. I’ve also noticed an opposite effect—again, this is for myself—with entertainment of a baser nature.
Just as there are works which tend to refine me (as much as I let them), there are works which tend to dull that refinement easily, and without much effort on my part. I don’t want to dwell on this much, because it’s probably different for everyone, but I believe it’s a real phenomenon.
Ezekiel the Prophet wrote this in the 6th century BCE:
There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof. Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.
(Ezekiel 22:25-26, KJV)
Putting difference between the holy and the profane, the unclean and the clean is one of the marks of refinement. Exposure and contemplation of the best humanity has to offer is inspiring and drives me to pursue excellence in my own sphere.
It is unfortunate that most people do not find their vocation in life, or perhaps other pursuits (distractions, such as basic survival or family harmony) prohibit them from dedicating themselves fully to their passions. It is heartening, though, that any of us may still find fulfillment in excelling in our humanity: that living a good life is still a noble (albeit less visible) expression of what we really believe we are on the inside.
posted on Sun, 02 Nov 2008 at 20:52 | permanent link | view comments
Creative power is in each of us. The most capable among us at bringing out that creativity (in whatever medium we’re using: art, literature, music, architecture, etc.) we call artists.
Recognizing those who are driven by their art is important; those are the ones whose works will be most inspiring, provided they have the skill. Those driven by commercial interests will produce inferior works. This includes most TV and most film (probably due to the high commercial value of those media; we haven’t seen much commercial intrusion into literature—e.g., the novel—but I wouldn’t be surprised to see sponsorships appear in a popular author’s work. This is another topic for another day).
Paul Graham talks about how hard it can be to tell the difference sometimes between tricks and the true art. In addition to his advice, time is a great sifter; trash eventually passes out of memory (though occasionally it’s dug up again) while the excellent works generally endure.
Most artists I know don’t know the nature of their work, they just produce it. You can be a great musician, painter, programmer—any creative endeavor—without giving much thought to your own creative nature. I think it’s an enviable position to be an artist.
An artist is someone who can express the god inside them in a way that inspires someone else to want to do the same.
Here is an artist-programmer at work (from an IM transcript):
me: I'd forgotten you used Huffman encoding from the url to the
file system layout
me: that's nice
me: makes good sense.
artist: for games?
me: d = direct, pl = player
artist: oh right
me: fewest letters required for uniqueness
artist: *shrug*
artist: I just thought it looked good.
I noticed the elegance and simplicity of his URL scheme; he was only doing what looked good to him, and his taste is so good that it looks good to most people I know.