"I used to read a lot of novels when I was younger. I can't read most anymore, because they don't have enough information in them."
This is a good one to add to the list of things not to say on a first date. And if it does somehow come up, at least have enough sense not to follow it with "I also don't read biographies/memoirs because I consider them fiction."
You think? Sounds pretty good to me - provided you're able to listen to your date explaining why s/he _does_ like novels, and to convey something of the joy you get from reading non-fiction.
But then I have a fairly naive concept of a date as a (potential) meeting of minds, rather than a PR exercise.
Actually I also rejected fiction after university, I find I don't have that much time to sit and read so why bother with fiction. I was a ridiculously avid reader of fiction and I wish that I had of read science books instead of re-reading the Hardy Boys (original series and some of the casefiles).
This was the only part of the essay that irked me. Bad writing in general has a low information density; the problem is not exclusive to fiction.
It doesn't help that information is embedded structurally in a novel, which makes it harder to tease out. But good fiction (say, Ulysses or Crime and Punishment or Nine Stories) is as rich as any essay or monograph.
It's also not clear that density, in the strict sense, is what I'm after when I read. If so I'd be buried in technical papers, when what I really want is something to tickle my brain; to that end, I wouldn't want to lose any one of arXiv, the Engineering library, or the literature section at Borders.
Kevin Garnett plays exactly the same way that you describe Jack Lambert. He goes only one speed: full blast. Whenever I need motiviation, I find myself asking myself, wwkgd?
One of my heroes: O Sensei, Morihei Ueshiba. He definitely cared excessively about his "work", and was absolutely honest. He invented aikido, the "art of peace", whose broad purpose is to "make human beings one family."
What was the point of this comment? I was saying that he's one of my heroes and pointed out that, incidentally, he fit some of pg's criteria as well. I also pointed out one of his major accomplishments. I didn't mention anything about him being a "martial legend." If you could explain how your comment relates to anything I mentioned or to the subject of "personal heroes" I'd greatly appreciate it.
To address the actual content of your comment, though - no, it takes more than "the attack at 3:53" to be a martial legend. As it happens, he spent virtually his entire life practicing martial arts, and a number of other prominent Japanese martial artists attested to his ability during his lifetime. I encourage you to learn more about him and about aikido. You might still come away thinking "Yeah whatever, the only reason anyone thought anything of him was because he had cowering tools for students", but at least you'll have more evidence for it then a short portion of some youtube video.
1977 Pro Bowl. AFC defense - 8 Pittsburgh Steelers and 3 players from other teams on the field at the same time. Jack Lambert, the middle linebacker and captain, was calling out defensive signals using the Steelers' proprietary lingo. One of the other players asked, "What should we do?" Lambert replied, "Stay out of our way."
Second favorite Jack Lambert story:
When accused by a referee of biting another player in the finger, Lambert said, "I didn't bite his finger and I can prove it." "How?" the referee asked. "He's still got it, doesn't he?"
One of the best teams ever with one of the best players ever. And no one "danced" after making a great play. They just did a great job and acted as if they had done that job before and intended to do it again. Man, how I miss that. Thanks for the memories, pg.
I recently found this quote from a contemporary author:
“Jane Austen writes about people with desperately restricted
lives codified by iron rules. The first thing she does is to
choose a genre, the romantic novel, which is exactly the kind
of book those women would read if they were reading books.”
That illustrates to me a unique approach, where even the genre of the work itself serves the overall message and theme of the work.
And let me put in a word for Walt Disney, who I totally dismissed until I read about him. The parallels between his personality and that of Steve Jobs are fascinating.
Yeah, the place was a kind of worst-case scenario for strip development. In my time the big draw was Monroeville Mall, the biggest in the country at the time of its construction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroeville_Mall).
The one good part, for a kid, was that a lot of the land was too hilly to build on, and was left as forest.
Things haven't changed much. I grew up in Trafford (it's not often I can expect someone to know where that is) and inevitably find myself at Monroeville Mall every year during the holidays.
Another list: Gary Gordon, Randy Shughart, the Finnish anti-armor teams in the mostly-forgotten Winter War against the Soviets (> 80% casualties), and the 300 Spartans who held off the Persians at Thermopylae.
From my limited understanding of art interpretation, in earlier times art was seen somewhat as an attempt to understand or mimic the world around them in order to understand it better. Now we tend to value creativity as a more important quality, but in doing so we sacrifice a degree of sincerity or even nobility that curiosity and mimicry have. All of these heroes share a creative quality, but in a more classical sense. They are true to themselves and their art, but they probably intuited that their art is as much or more about discovery than anything else. Maybe that's the key to making the leap from artistic commoner to greatness...
I've totally been looking for a good intro to art history recently (my friend's textbook just doesn't look that appealing...), so thanks for the recommendation! Anyone recommend a good starting point for diving into Wodehouse too? :)
In what way? Was mimesis about modeling physical appearance or understanding the underlying principles? I can see how photography is a shortcut for the former, but it seems worse for the latter.
I've read about a dozen Wodehouse novels, and have yet to be disappointed by any of them. Some characters and some jokes are better than others, but I think you can pick one off the shelf at random and you'll be happy you did.
The one that comes to mind is "Leave it to Psmith," but not because it was necessarily such a standout book, but because of one line (concerning the name Psmith) that I still laugh about every time I think of it, years later.
Sweet, thanks! I ended up with "The Most of PG Wodehouse" just 'cause it seemed a good place to start. Sounds like I'll be happy with it either way!
From the sound of it, this'll be quite the welcome contrast to the last book I read: Journey to the End of the Night by Celine. Great book, but not a happy read at all...
> To do really great things, you have to seek out questions people didn't even realize were questions. ... You only get one life. Why not do something huge?
This one really got me thinking. While tackling big questions is certainly admirable, it implies that greatness ought to be a goal one has in life. As I get older (I'm now married with 2 kids), I've become more and more convinced that it's more important in life to strive to be a good person than to strive to be a great person.
That's why my list would include people like Lao Tze, who would probably be happy that people found his writings useful, but would likely find the fact that he's still revered thousands of years after his death of far less importance than how he spent some particular day of his life.
My asian religions prof. spent a bunch of years of her life studying the text and she was telling us this. Apparently some people still think it's an esoteric text, but they are in the minority.
Unfortunately I don't have any references to back it up, and none of the translations I have sitting in front of me mention it in the forward. And of course it's impossible to find anything via Google only because there are so many parodies of the Tao Te Ching itself.
There must be academic journals on the study of taoism, but I am having trouble finding any just searching online. I can try emailing her and asking for a cite if you'd like though.
If it isn't too much trouble, I'd be very interested to hear more about that. I'm no scholar, but I find Taoism and the Tao Te Ching fascinating. I would understand it being partly satirical of prevailing thought, whilst being esoteric, but it being a simple satire would be quite amazing to me. Perhaps the esoterism is an artifact of translation/interpolation ;)
Thanks for that, but my understanding of the passage you refer to is that it is discussing T'ao Yuan-ming's poem "Peach Blossom Spring", not the Tao Te Ching.
I've recently been reading Ellen Chen's new translation and commentaries [http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Translation-Commentary/dp...]. It includes an interesting discussion of academic attitudes to the history and origins of the Tao Te Ching, and as I recall the notion of it being satire is not mentioned.
> Reading The Nude is like a ride in a Ferrari. Just as you're getting settled, you're slammed back in your seat by the acceleration. Before you can adjust, you're thrown sideways as the car screeches into the first turn. His brain throws off ideas almost too fast to grasp them.
"Robert Morris has a very unusual quality: he's never wrong."
I was only ever wrong once. I thought that I had been mistaken about something 5 years earlier, but it turned out I hadn't. I was wrong about having been wrong.
Really a personal list like this is impacted by a number of factors especically your childhood experiences.
So from my perspective, Jane Austen brings me nothing but disgust. Her novels were piss poor from my perspective. However, this was me at 15 working at a library and skimming books as I put them away. Austen books were a slap in the face to me at that age dealing with my parents divorcing during the same time.
I really enjoy this article though, but my list would be substantially different. I should write it up.
I also usually don't comment because the other comments are often so biting. I really enjoy reading about what influences people and their histories. Opinions about subjects without clear answers can be interesting to read, but always leave one feeling slightly at odds with the writer. Its almost that if written correctly, opinion pieces should have at least something that you don't agree with. In good situations, this initiates a discourse around that point, but often online this just leads to trolling by commenters - which never leads to good things.
I like P.G. Wodehouse's stories; I'm quite a bit less impressed with his activities during World War 2.
Wodehouse was in France when the Germans invaded in 1940. He was interned as an enemy alien by the Nazis for a year. The Germans were able to persuade him to make some light-hearted radio broadcasts intended for American (but not British) consumption, in exchange for his release from internment. Many Britons (including A.A. Milne) never forgave him for this, though Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell defended him.
After the War, Wodehouse found that he could not live in England and moved to the U.S., where he became a citizen in 1955.
No, that would have been Lord Haw Haw and Ezra Pound who made propaganda broadcasts for the fascists.
It wasn't as though Wodehouse had shaken hands with Hitler. He merely talked about what his internment was like, and he only made about five broadcasts. Even so, I think he was incredibly naïve of him to do this, given that by 1940, the Germans hadn't simply crossed the line into uncivilized conduct, they had gleefully flown over it with flags raised and fireworks shooting.
I thought you meant he was hated by the Brits because he misrepresented the Nazis and how they treated their POWs, like Jane Fonda did with the American POWs.
However, I just read pg's link and now understand what you were saying.
Though you do seem to have invented one part: that the broadcasts were in exchange for his release.
As usual, Wikipedia is not the last word in accuracy in such matters. Most of the British literary world seems to have been on his side. The leader of the opposition was not A. A. Milne, but a now-forgotten journalist (I've literally forgotten his name) who made a crusade of it as a form of proto-linkbait. And Wodehouse hadn't lived in England before the war, either. He moved to the US in his twenties.
In regards to the Newton comment, I need to find a solution to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, otherwise there is no such thing as a significant answer!
Have you read The Nature of Order by Christopher Alexander? I'd very much like to hear your opinions and comments on the book series. And also see, whether he would appear on your next list of heroes.
108 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 212 ms ] threadThis is a good one to add to the list of things not to say on a first date. And if it does somehow come up, at least have enough sense not to follow it with "I also don't read biographies/memoirs because I consider them fiction."
/Don't ask
But then I have a fairly naive concept of a date as a (potential) meeting of minds, rather than a PR exercise.
I do read some biographies/memoirs though :P
It doesn't help that information is embedded structurally in a novel, which makes it harder to tease out. But good fiction (say, Ulysses or Crime and Punishment or Nine Stories) is as rich as any essay or monograph.
It's also not clear that density, in the strict sense, is what I'm after when I read. If so I'd be buried in technical papers, when what I really want is something to tickle my brain; to that end, I wouldn't want to lose any one of arXiv, the Engineering library, or the literature section at Borders.
Here's a decent video of him: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0XTlWDOQBno&feature=related
To address the actual content of your comment, though - no, it takes more than "the attack at 3:53" to be a martial legend. As it happens, he spent virtually his entire life practicing martial arts, and a number of other prominent Japanese martial artists attested to his ability during his lifetime. I encourage you to learn more about him and about aikido. You might still come away thinking "Yeah whatever, the only reason anyone thought anything of him was because he had cowering tools for students", but at least you'll have more evidence for it then a short portion of some youtube video.
1977 Pro Bowl. AFC defense - 8 Pittsburgh Steelers and 3 players from other teams on the field at the same time. Jack Lambert, the middle linebacker and captain, was calling out defensive signals using the Steelers' proprietary lingo. One of the other players asked, "What should we do?" Lambert replied, "Stay out of our way."
Second favorite Jack Lambert story:
When accused by a referee of biting another player in the finger, Lambert said, "I didn't bite his finger and I can prove it." "How?" the referee asked. "He's still got it, doesn't he?"
One of the best teams ever with one of the best players ever. And no one "danced" after making a great play. They just did a great job and acted as if they had done that job before and intended to do it again. Man, how I miss that. Thanks for the memories, pg.
I recently found this quote from a contemporary author:
That illustrates to me a unique approach, where even the genre of the work itself serves the overall message and theme of the work.And let me put in a word for Walt Disney, who I totally dismissed until I read about him. The parallels between his personality and that of Steve Jobs are fascinating.
The one good part, for a kid, was that a lot of the land was too hilly to build on, and was left as forest.
I've totally been looking for a good intro to art history recently (my friend's textbook just doesn't look that appealing...), so thanks for the recommendation! Anyone recommend a good starting point for diving into Wodehouse too? :)
The one that comes to mind is "Leave it to Psmith," but not because it was necessarily such a standout book, but because of one line (concerning the name Psmith) that I still laugh about every time I think of it, years later.
From the sound of it, this'll be quite the welcome contrast to the last book I read: Journey to the End of the Night by Celine. Great book, but not a happy read at all...
This one really got me thinking. While tackling big questions is certainly admirable, it implies that greatness ought to be a goal one has in life. As I get older (I'm now married with 2 kids), I've become more and more convinced that it's more important in life to strive to be a good person than to strive to be a great person.
That's why my list would include people like Lao Tze, who would probably be happy that people found his writings useful, but would likely find the fact that he's still revered thousands of years after his death of far less importance than how he spent some particular day of his life.
Unfortunately I don't have any references to back it up, and none of the translations I have sitting in front of me mention it in the forward. And of course it's impossible to find anything via Google only because there are so many parodies of the Tao Te Ching itself.
There must be academic journals on the study of taoism, but I am having trouble finding any just searching online. I can try emailing her and asking for a cite if you'd like though.
I've recently been reading Ellen Chen's new translation and commentaries [http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Translation-Commentary/dp...]. It includes an interesting discussion of academic attitudes to the history and origins of the Tao Te Ching, and as I recall the notion of it being satire is not mentioned.
Apparently it reads just like Snow Crash. ;-)
I was only ever wrong once. I thought that I had been mistaken about something 5 years earlier, but it turned out I hadn't. I was wrong about having been wrong.
Einstein.
So from my perspective, Jane Austen brings me nothing but disgust. Her novels were piss poor from my perspective. However, this was me at 15 working at a library and skimming books as I put them away. Austen books were a slap in the face to me at that age dealing with my parents divorcing during the same time.
I really enjoy this article though, but my list would be substantially different. I should write it up.
Regarding the Spitfire, have you ever watched the 1942 movie 'The First of thew Few'?
Wodehouse was in France when the Germans invaded in 1940. He was interned as an enemy alien by the Nazis for a year. The Germans were able to persuade him to make some light-hearted radio broadcasts intended for American (but not British) consumption, in exchange for his release from internment. Many Britons (including A.A. Milne) never forgave him for this, though Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell defended him.
After the War, Wodehouse found that he could not live in England and moved to the U.S., where he became a citizen in 1955.
It wasn't as though Wodehouse had shaken hands with Hitler. He merely talked about what his internment was like, and he only made about five broadcasts. Even so, I think he was incredibly naïve of him to do this, given that by 1940, the Germans hadn't simply crossed the line into uncivilized conduct, they had gleefully flown over it with flags raised and fireworks shooting.
I did not realize that about Ezra Pound. Now I see why people like GK Chesterton and CS Lewis disliked TS Elliot (protege of Pound) so much.
However, I just read pg's link and now understand what you were saying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._G._Wodehouse
Though you do seem to have invented one part: that the broadcasts were in exchange for his release.
As usual, Wikipedia is not the last word in accuracy in such matters. Most of the British literary world seems to have been on his side. The leader of the opposition was not A. A. Milne, but a now-forgotten journalist (I've literally forgotten his name) who made a crusade of it as a form of proto-linkbait. And Wodehouse hadn't lived in England before the war, either. He moved to the US in his twenties.
I wonder about John von Neumann. I thought maybe he'd be on there too.
My favourite sentence in the essay. Made me aware of a dimension I didn't associate pg with.
He is definitely on mine.
Honesty is a quality I really admire in you myself, PG. Be careful not to work too hard though! Thanks for another good read!