Spin The Word

Let's play spin the word. Without using a dictionary to parse your response, answer the following:

a.) You're an attentive parent. Which would offend you more - someone referring to your child as coddled or doted upon?

b.) You occasionally lose your cool when playing sports. Would you prefer your teammates call you competitive or intense?

c.) Your tastes in food, music, etc. are well known to people close to you and largely unchanging. Would you be more likely to refer to yourself as predictable or an open book?

Pay close attention and tell me the next time you run into a potato vs. potahto scenario similar to a-c above. I'm curious to know if the next tomato/tomahto situation you encounter is one not already on my list. And as far as that list is concerned, call me thorough or quirky - I've heard both. Just depends on who is spinning the word.

February 2, February 2, February 2

Of the many silly movies I've seen, Harold Ramis' "Groundhog Day", starring Bill Murray, has returned to my mind more frequently than any other. Case in point:

Whining about how my planned trip to Smoky Mountain National Park next week will likely be cancelled because of boneheaded politics, a new friend helpfully commiserated. Then he added - "Imagine those people who were already camping in Yosemite or elsewhere and were told to pack up and leave a park!" In a flash the central premise of "Groundhog Day" came to me - How many times have I made this same mistake over and over? While busy feeling sorry for myself, others have been so much more inconvenienced than I.  And how about all those Federal employees on unpaid furlough?

Pat whines; friend speaks; "Groundhog Day" flashes; Buddha intones -"When a student is ready, a teacher appears"; perspective returns. Until the next time.

A Cranky Minority

You notice someone reading a book you've read and ask how they're enjoying it. What other circumstance readily comes to mind where you initiate a conversation with a total stranger?

Direct from codger-land comes my next question: If the same stranger is using a Kindle or a Nook, what are the chances of you initiating that conversation? Though reading is a solitary act, even a superficial conversation with a stranger can deepen my enjoyment of a book. And perhaps equally important, a visible book title acts as a socially permissible entree for human connection, no matter how brief.

In a galaxy far away, I recall being in the distinct minority when those loud boom boxes were everywhere on the streets. Even when the music temporarily pummeling me was not to my liking, at least I was sharing an experience. When the Sony Walkman soon after became the polite and default way to retreat into a private concert, I got a bit wistful for the chest rattling bass of those boom boxes. Minority status could soon be mine again vis-a-vis my current posture re Kindles etc. There are worse things.

Your Place Or Mine, Barbara?

I doubt it's a coincidence that the writers I most want to meet came to me via non-fiction.

I clearly recall my first experience like this, right after reading Anna Quindlen's 1993 book of essays "Thinking Out Loud", which I finished around the time of its publication. I began by writing her a letter of introduction - never sent. And though I've subsequently read and liked some of Quindlen's fiction, I can't this moment remember an instance when my gateway for wanting a tete-a-tete with an author was a novel. For example, my first experience with the late David Foster Wallace was trying to crack his breakout novel "Infinite Jest". Had no luck with that and his short stories are equally inscrutable. Yet, two of his books of essays made me want to look him up; seriously.

Immediately after finishing "This Is How" by Agusten Burroughs last year, I tried communicating with him via his website. Wisely, his firewall is avid fan/stalker/nut proof. Oh well. Regular readers of this blog know of my unadorned admiration for the non-fiction of Christopher Hitchens. Though I'd have been hard-pressed to hold my own in a conversation with him, that didn't prevent me from fantasizing about exactly that scenario while Hitchens was still alive.

Now, directly on the heels of completing "Nickel and Dimed" (2001) by Barbara Ehrenreich, a few years after reading her 2008 book "This Land Is Their Land", I've added another candidate for that dinner all serious readers have imagined. If you had that dinner and only writers were invited, who would they be? How many would be, like mine, primarily from the world of non-fiction? For the record: If E.L. Doctorow, Toni Morrison or Philip Roth want to discuss their fiction with me, I am so available.            

NYC - Just Like I Pictured (& Heard And Smelled) It

Having spent the last two days bombarded by the sights, sounds and smells of NYC, I've decided - when low on inspiration, it's time to hop on a train and just walk around the city. If nothing grabs me while I'm there, all those solitary hours reading, writing & daydreaming on the train are often an effective portal.

Rebel Bingo - That NYC sign went directly into a notebook I started many years ago after buying a t-shirt emblazoned with the phrase "fill dirt and croissants". On the train home, "rebel bingo" begat "jock strap and black tie", "tapioca topiary" & "tupperware gridlock" in my addled brain. Because adjective/noun word combinations are more common, my own long list of these jarring juxtapositions combine two nouns. More jarring, right? Why not let your brain roam and send me a few of yours?

Also, after hearing a passer-by mentioning a marriage that was "on the rocks", I began to unexpectedly channel the late George Carlin while walking the streets of NYC. Flashing to a wedding ceremony I recently saw being conducted on a jetty near my home, I wondered - If those newlyweds split up will others say their marriage is "off the rocks?" What common phrases have you reflected on lately? How about "swan song?" Come on, get jiggy.    

I'll leave out which NYC smells took my mind where. Use your imagination - that's what this post is meant to inspire in you. NYC does it for me.
             

My Grade (So Far): Eloquence - Your Call

eloquence: the action, practice, or art of using language with fluency, power, and aptness.

To date, I've introduced twenty attributes in this series, grading myself publicly on all but wit, this May just past. However, based on the definition, it seems wholly appropriate that you complete my current report card for eloquence. When compiling my grade, please take all three factors mentioned into consideration and do the same when grading yourself, a practice I've encouraged all along. Public or offline comments can then be one grade (i.e. yours for me) or two, if you want to share your self-grade. A nice bonus for anyone going public would be sharing a rationale for your self-grade.

From the start of this series in February 2012, my primary consideration selecting attributes has been to make each one unique enough to avoid overlap. My aim? Helping ensure anyone that chose to do the needed introspection each month would do fresh work. An unintended by product of making the attributes so diverse has been my own grades being diverse. Anyone with straight A's at this point? I'd like to see that water-walking trick soon, OK?

And my biggest challenge from the start has been to be honest about the grade I think I deserve (so far) while keeping false modesty in check. If you've done any of this work with me, how have you dealt with that challenge?    

Birthday & Christmas In One Package

It's no exaggeration to say the teaching assignment I'll begin early next year is a dream come true.

The first continuing ed course I'll deliver is called "One Thing Leads To Another: Popular Music In The 20th Century".  Ever since my proposal was accepted, my mind has been singing. As I now begin the design, all my musician friends can expect their brains to be picked. Lurkers in the bell curve blogosphere who'd like to weigh in, musician or otherwise, consider the following:

* For the first course, I'm looking for connections that link songs and artists throughout the century; nothing is too far fetched. Joe Jackson & Duke Ellington; Steely Dan & Horace Silver; the Beatles & Meredith Wilson, etc.
* Because I'll be playing as well as lecturing in the first course and beyond, songs lending themselves well to solo guitar (without voice) are especially welcome.
* Later courses will build on the first and touch on several genres (blues, country, rock, jazz, R&B) so let your creativity run amok and then share your ideas with me. Sorry, no royalties; can't afford it on the pittance I'm being paid.

More on this in the coming months. What a nice early birthday gift.

Intelligent And Revealing

"The harder I work, the luckier I get" - Mark Twain

I wonder why Malcolm Gladwell did not use those pithy words as the epigraph for his 2008 bestseller "Outliers"? Or at minimum, to open his chapter called "The 10,000 Hour Rule"? Twain's aphorism has always had the ring of truth for me. And Gladwell's examples of outliers who have assiduously applied that 10,000 hour rule, from Mozart to Bill Gates to the Beatles, further fortify Twain's words for me.

Having never had much use for the over-used "genius", I also appreciated how Gladwell deconstructs that hoary cliche. He doesn't deny the role of innate talent but his persuasive research makes a nuanced case for the other factors contributing to success.

But what I've most liked about Gladwell's books is how he doesn't hide from topics he covers. For example, the essay "Something Borrowed" from "What The Dogs Saw" (2009) is about confronting the probability that all writers (including Gladwell), sometimes unknowingly borrow from other writers. He asks - Should a charge of plagiarism ruin your life? Here, in section two of "Outliers" (entitled "Legacy"), he skillfully yet courageously teases out the way cultural norms impact success. In less skilled or polemic hands, this could have easily deteriorated into stereotyping. Gladwell not only avoids that, in the epilogue he uses his own family history to support his convincing premise. In my experience, except for memoirs, non-fiction this intelligent and revealing is hard to come by.  Your experience?