About Writing

Here's a great quote from my reading this morning on copyblogger:

You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what’s burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke. ~Arthur Polotnik

This is kindof a cool concept, it really makes sense to me especially because I used to be horribly stream-of-consciousness, and now since my job, which consists of writing nothing but businesslike emails, and seeing amazing standards of terseness, to the point of actually lacking necessary information, I continually edit for brevity and clarity.

How will my two modes actually coexist in my writing? This remains to be seen. Obviously.

My wife commented off hand that with the revelation that my brother in law writing a book, she wanting to write a book, and the common knowledge that I have a itch to write as well, --something about 'delusional' or 'silly' but now I can't think of the word, it was over the weekend. It was apt, sometimes she comes out with really cool stuff.

Consumery

Today's topic: The items I want.
Today walking from the metro to my cube in the cube on the block, I was obsessing, just mildly, if one can obsess mildly, about my next purchase in the carryall arena. I also came up with a great retort for my co-worker's snide comment, "You headed to school?" I carry a backpack which holds laptop and paper equally well. My retort, approximately 21 hours too late is, "No, cause then I'd have my briefcase."

Back to carreyall carryall territory: I'd get a Crumpler bag. I think the Timbuk 2 bags are 1) way too popular, and 2) I'd spend hours trying to decide what three colors to use. I think I added Crumpler to my Amazon wish list, there for all to see and buy for me. The link is at the right, right now.

And then I grew introspective after having noticed my mildly obsessive fixation on having a Crumpler bag, well before it's needed, since my Jansport is probably still good for another 2-3 years at least, and I saw a small unimportant pattern in my life of fixating on certain things and simply having to have them. This pattern, however, clearly, doesn't predict that I will actually fully and completely like the item fixated on, but I tend to think that yes I will like, while I want and don't yet have. This non-predictive relationship between my wants/fixations and my actual satisfaction with the product leads me to wish I didn't fixate on things, since much of those thoughts are a waste of time and eventually probably a waste of money.

I just thought of something else I will probably ponder thoughtlessly: Rayban Wayfarers. They're coming after this aviator craze is over, and after the blowfly look has gone. I want to be ahead of the curve. But for what? Just to have them? Just to BE ahead of the curve? No, not really, I've always thought it was a cool look. The wife says I shouldn't get black, it's too harsh.

Next topic: wearing wayfarer-shaped glasses, and looking somewhat 60's retro, and me, in front of a meeting of serious people, expecting them to take me seriously.

Public Awareness

I was reading this article, which was in my feed from NYT, and was intrigued by this quote, in which a professor at Penn State is talking about grabbing the public's attention and focusing it on an issue. I think the quote or the idea behind it can easily be generalized to include any effort to raise public awareness or garner media attention.
via
Sex crimes became a media sensation. Though the overwhelming majority of offenses against kids — 80 percent to 90 percent — are committed by someone the victim knows, the news media focused on the rare and very chilling rapes and murders of young girls by strangers. Children as sex offenders became the next obvious step in our national anxiety about sex crimes, Philip Jenkins, author of “Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America” and a professor of religious studies and history at Pennsylvania State University, told me. “First it’s adult predators, and then it’s what about children? To draw attention, you have to up the ante. The issue moves up a notch, and you can’t move it back easily.”

Purple Cow

Right now I'm reading Purple Cow by Seth Godin. I got it in some ways to encourage my wife, (see her website in my list of links) in the area of marketing. I'd read The Big Moo, Godin's follow up book, before reading this one, and I think the moo was better than the cow, in some ways, since this book is clearly aimed at marketing execs and medium-large companies.

That's not to say the book doesn't translate to smaller companies or entrepreneurs, the author isn't so untalented, nor is he so apathetic to a potential market that he wouldn't include some good small examples, but the majority of the stories, examples, and advice are about and aimed at big businesses with big budgets, the people who make ads for television and print, as well as in some part those who use the internet to advertize.

I'm about half way maybe more than half way, and it's good reading, even for me the casual dabbler in cashie jobs. I don't have a quote from the book this time, but it's really short and an easy read. I'd encourage anyone to read it, if nothing else for the ability to make conversation with business suits.

I just started patching my neighbor's ceiling (and I'm charging way too little). She had an electrician install a new ceiling fan, not only in her living room, but also in her bedroom. He used a blunt tool to make a thin breach leading to the fan, and I find myself going along with a blade and cutting a straight strip so my patching job is made a little easier.

Kleptocracy

The other word I really enjoyed, same book as the one I've been reading, is kleptocracy. Its roots are obvious and I don't know how much in use it is, but it really and truly describes the federal system of taxation in my mind. A government based on stealing. Of course, our government also interferes, charges additional fees, and gives back next to nothing, especially someone in my position, middle class and barely making my mortgage payment. Not that I'm complaining, there are some who are much worse off than I am. But honestly, how much nicer is it to have no obligation to line anyone's pockets with your cash. In that way homelessness looks attractive.

I would never want to be homeless, however, because I don't want some other homeless person to piss on my head while I'm asleep and then tell me I'm in her spot.

Hubris

Today's word comes from my current reading, but could have come from any number of books:
Hubris
Which means:
Excessive pride displayed by a character and often taking the form of a boastful comparison of the self to the divine, the gods, or other higher powers--often also resulting in harsh punishment.
As of now I'm not competent with this word, I would have difficulty incorporating into my writing, but it's really kindof a neat word.

I was enjoying the sound of another word, just yesterday but it slips my mind.

Dark Age

Back to book reviews and penses on my latest reading material.
Before I get into that, I was recommended to read "The Place Near Kolob" or some book of that type of title. I pretended to be interested. Is that bad?

Jane Jacobs, in her last book, Dark Age Ahead takes the opportunity in her last years of life to tell what she thinks will happen to 'North America' which is really USA/Canada if certain problems are not corrected. There are times, while reading the book, in which I find myself agreeing, and there are times I find myself unable to agree, because I don't have much experience with what she describes. There are arguments which she made previously in her more well known book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, written before she went to Canada and while she lived in New York City.

I actually didn't know she was dead until I looked her up in Wikipedia to see whether Dark Age Ahead was her last book or not. It was her last book, she passed away just over a year ago.

As usual I'd like to include an excerpt where I think she makes an excellent point:

Everyone needs entrées into networks of acquaintances for practical as well as social purpohses. Think what hte adults in a nuclear family--just two of them--areexpected by society to provide:

Knowledge and experience sufficient to use simple home remedies in cases of trivial illnesses or wounds, and--more important--the ability to judge correctly and quickly when ills or wounds are too serious for home remedies, maybe even life-threatening. Ability to tutor children needing help with homework. Ability to be a soccer mom and a hockey dad. Skill and tact at training children to shun drugs and to be cautios of strangers but not to mistrust everybody. Ability to purchase responsibly, make bill and tax payments, and in general handle money realistically in spite of blandishments to gamble or become profligate. Bake ordinary home and equipment repairs and keep abreast of maintenance chores. Deal knowledgeably with banks and bureaucracies. Pull a fair share of family weight in community betterment efforst and neighborhood protection. Deal civilly with people whose upbringing, cultures, and personalities are at odds wiht the traditions and customs of one's own nuclear family, and teach children to be both cosmopolitan and tolerant. Without this last ability, nuclear familys can be irreparably torn asunder when relationships develop between their children and lovers from other ethnic or religious backgrounds or, if the family is very stodgy, simply from other educational or income groups.

Who are the paragons that, unaided and unadvised, can earn a living and also provide all this and more? Few of them exist.

She talks at some length about losing what the previous generation had already worked out. It makes sense to me, that the good knowledge seems to be flushed away with that bad, during upheavals and overthrows of culture. The way she describes and at the same time warns reveals a thinking mind, one that has had time to put the problem into words succinctly and in many ways, accurately. The book retains much of its punch because the author doesn't venture far into areas she does not know.

Homophobe

I don't know why it's a big deal in my mind, but I've been thinking off and on what's the big deal with me and my homophobia. It's not as bad as my fear of being so desperate that I'd take a job dressed as a mascot on the street (which can't be overcome by being rich and then doing it on a lark, the key here is truly having bottomed out, but that's another discussion). I really enjoy Blondie, especially their early stuff, not that I was remotely aware of her, or the whole 'scene' when I was young, this is me catching up.
Anyway, I was reading stuff and eventually wound up on debbieharry.com, and there was reference to an article about her tour, here, where she says:

"I don't care what kind of sexuality people have, as long as they're decent human beings and they treat each other with respect."

and I thought, I hope I can get to that point, in today's world. But honestly I really don't want my son to be gay, nor would I want any of his teachers to be gay, nor would I want him to be accepting of homosexuality as though it were natural and normal. That's one of my biggest gripes, is that is still feel that there's huge dishonesty about whether it's in-born. If they were just honest about it and admitted that it was a lifestyle that appealed to someone who was essentially choosing to be gay, then I think I could at least feel there wasn't pretense at work, pretense to make a lifestyle legitimate.