June 2012
1 post
“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement.”
– Eric Hoffer
May 2012
2 posts
1 tag
A Kite Out of a Hell
It was a twelve-mile trip to work, and I had only been biking for seven when I was hit. Leaving for work at nine in the morning should have spared me any problems with traffic, and it was one of those clear days in May when you can see for miles. But it turns out “traffic” is only a broad, statistical risk; there is no accounting for the individual driver. Every moving thing on...
Who Killed Men's Hats? →
…Most people say the turning point was John F. Kennedy’s inauguration…But I am the son of a hat designer. And my father, Allen S. Krulwich, had a different explanation. The president who de-hatted America, he thought, was Dwight Eisenhower.
I’ve often wondered why, exactly, men no longer wear hats here. It turns out that cars and hats may be mutually exclusive.
April 2012
7 posts
“With an American, becoming an actor is rather like a lady becoming a nun....”
– Michael Caine
“In this idea originated the plan of the “Lyrical Ballads”; in which...”
– Two approaches to elevating your readers’ hearts and minds: either to procure “poetic faith” by directing them to the supernatural or romantic — or to “open their eyes” by giving “the charm of novelty to everyday things.” This quote would have gone...
1 tag
Harnessed to a Star →
My thoughts on some words of Jack London’s to a young writer that have been making the rounds.
“It was only later that I realized the value of being bored was actually pretty...”
– Clay Shirky, How We Will Read
March 2012
4 posts
“While friendship has been by far the chief source of my happiness, acquaintance...”
– C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, via Barry Cooper, who asks “What would C S Lewis make of Facebook?” I suspect that C.S. Lewis might use Facebook the way it’s supposed to be used: to connect with actual, real-life friends.
(Time spent would probably be extremely minimal, though.)
“From the very start, everything that is good in a person is silent, and just as...”
– Søren Kierkegaard, “Against Cowardliness”
The Apologist's Evening Prayer
From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.
Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my...
“Where were the words I meant to say before you left,
When I could see your...”
– from January Hymn by the Decemberists, included at the end of my February 22 podcast.
Understanding this lyric was a powerful moment for me. In winter, you can see peoples’ breath, but think about it: as a person walks, their breath shows where they have been, not where they are going. This...
February 2012
5 posts
Drogin: Anathema! →
Marc Drogin’s Medieval Calligraphy, not only a calligraphy instruction book but a very enjoyable and well-illustrated historical read, was an early influence on me, so it was neat to see a qualified reviewer offer a treatment of another of his books. I’ll be buying a copy for sure.
“A scribal tradition developed whereby a scribe, having completed his work, was able to append...
The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia →
An example of subtle flaws built into Wikipedia’s culture and a reminder to take everything there with a big grain of salt.
1 tag
Verisign was hacked last year. You’ve probably never heard of them.
Verisign, Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet’s thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc and .tv country-code top-level domains,...
January 2012
8 posts
“I wish it longevity so that it might find shabbiness.”
– Arthur on new social websites and new museums.
“Sunder me from my bones, O sword of God
Till they stand stark and strange as do...”
– G.K. Chesterton
“Emerson has said, ‘When half-gods go, the gods arrive.’ This is a...”
– C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves — where he precedes it with, “When God rules in a human heart, though he may sometimes have to remove certain of its native authorities altogether, he often continues others in their offices and, by subjecting their authority to his, gives it for the first time...
“Christ’s isolation is not that of a prodigy but of a pioneer. He is the...”
– C. S. Lewis
The Dangerous Effect of Reading →
On Sunday I wrote that, “I want to look back on 2012 and say, ‘I produced X’, not ‘I envisioned X.’” Along comes this post describing exactly what I’m talking about. Let 2012 be the year where we set aside our wide-mouthed reading funnels and focus on producing. Let’s face it, we read enough stuff last year to inspire us for the next decade.
December 2011
14 posts
How to Learn About Everything →
First item on the list:
Read and skim journals and textbooks that (at the moment) you only half understand.
I’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember, due mostly to something I can’t help, a voracious reading appetite. But it works. Read things you don’t completely understand. Don’t demand full context. Every discrete part that you do understand is a...
2 tags
Jillette's Wipeout Test
There is no god and that’s the simple truth. If every trace of any single religion died out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.
— Penn Jillette, in...
1 tag
“It is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself but to move in an...”
– Gustav Flaubert
1 tag
Changing Hands, An Untitled Concept
This is an idea for an art installation. Dozens of volunteers hold their arms up through holes in the floor of the room. You cannot see any part of the volunteers except their arms, which appear to be growing out of the floor. Each arm is painted a different, random colour.
If not otherwise occupied, the arms sway gently from side to side, gently feeling around them.
A hundred-dollar bill is...
“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to...”
– Thomas Jefferson (via hipsterlibertarian)
How to Pay for What We Need →
Historian Richard Striner believes the solution to our economic woes is for Congress to begin printing money for use in public works projects.
If the Federal Reserve can create new money, couldn’t Congress do the very same thing? The answer is yes, and here’s the precedent: the Legal Tender Act of 1862, in which the Republican-controlled Congress authorized creation of “United States Notes,”...
What Do People Do With Old Journals?
When I die, I’ll leave behind a lot of journals and notebooks. These will, of course, be of interest to my immediate family, but they won’t exactly be great leisure reading; they probably won’t even make for good “inspirational” reading either (not without heavy editing, at least). The only obvious choice is to either keep them in a box in the attic, or eventually...
November 2011
5 posts
Antique Stradivarius violin replicated by... →
“A startup is like a mosquito. A bear can absorb a hit and a crab is armored...”
– Paul Graham, How to Make Wealth
October 2011
3 posts
Android Orphans: Visualizing a Sad History of... →
Future-proofing is a big deal for me, whether I’m selecting a blogging service/CMS or a smartphone. It means investing your money and usage in platforms that, in whatever ways applicable,
have a history of taking care of previous customers
have a history of providing quality tools and interfaces to developers (the people who make things for customers)
preserve data long term, and allow...
1 tag
Newer houses are better-built
Allison Arief’s article in the NYT, Shifting the Suburban Paradigm is a good one, but this particular statement needs addressing:
These continue to be built the same way they have for over a century, and usually not as well.
Walls and windows are thin, materials cheap, design (and I use the term loosely) not
well-considered.
I would say that each part of this statement is false,...
September 2011
4 posts
How to be Permanently Beloved as an Artist of Any...
Produce writing, music, or artwork targeted at young children. Indulge in an atmosphere of optimism, playfulness and innocent wonder, and quietly inject adult sensibilities where appropriate.
Be sure to make friends with children who enjoy your work. Respond to their letters, pose for their photographs, do them nice favours.
Spend an intermediate period of time out of the limelight while your...