08.08.06
The wonderful Moleskine notebook
I mentioned the Moleskine notebook earlier—one of the few notebooks to come with operating instructions (disguised as a sort of history of use). The notebooks are wonderful to use. The pocket size is quite handy, and the larger size makes a terrific journal. Ribbon page marker, elastic band to keep it closed, a file pocket in the back… Absolutely terrific.
The name, though, drives me crazy.
UPDATE: It drove me crazy because I was ignorant. One of the benefits of learning is that many sources of irritation are thereby removed. The Eldest points out in comments that “Moleskine” is not an English word. Not an English word—what will they think of next?
As is too often the case—and not just for me, gentle reader—a rant is delivered on exactly the wrong topic at the wrong time. My advice (to myself): check carefully before ranting. /update
Although it’s spelled Moleskine, it’s pronounced “Moleskin,”
UPDATE: I was wrong. The pronunciation, as noted in comments and on their Web site is mol-a-skeen’-a. /update
as if that terminal e is simply silent and doesn’t in fact do a job (which is to change the vowel from short to long). Read the rest of this entry »
Deciding at the ballot box
Good point in Froomkin’s column today:
At yesterday’s news conference, Bush had this to say on the topic of civil war in Iraq: “You know, I hear people say, well, civil war this, civil war that. The Iraqi people decided against civil war when they went to the ballot box. And a unity government is working to respond to the will of the people.”
White House Briefing reader Larry Mack was one of several e-mailers who found Bush’s airy dismissal particularly ironic given the books that, as I reported yesterday, are ostensibly on his summer reading list.
Writes Mack: “It is interesting that you note the history books President Bush has taken with him to read, particularly the two about Abraham Lincoln, in the same article where you note President Bush’s quote. . . . I guess those books will inform the President that the American people decided against civil war at the ballot box in 1860. Should be a comfort to him, and to all of us.”
Why one guy left his cartridge razor
From a thread at Badger and Blade:
So one day, a few weeks ago, I was shaving with my Gillette Fusion and not having a good time of it. The thought occured to me: I am holding a battery-powered, vibrating piece of plastic to my face.
I am shaving with a dildo.
Worse, I’m paying ~$4/week (cartridge) to do it.
Late to the party but loving it
I sometimes am not on the cutting edge of new advances (cf. my recent rediscovery of the double-edged blade and safety razor, my fondness for fountain pens, etc.). But I do often stumble across something that everyone else knows about.
Latest example: del.icio.us. According to the Wikipedia description, it is indeed pronounced “delicious.” And it’s extremely useful.
For those who, like me, live somewhat behind the racing pulse of the times, let me offer my description. del.icio.us allows you to tag Web pages so that you can readily revisit them. It’s faster than bookmarking the page, and moreover you can add a comment about why you are tagging the page—i.e., why this is of interest—so that, weeks later, when you return to the page, you can read the answer to “What was I thinking?”
Moreover, the tags are public: other people can read them and look at the nifty pages you’ve found, and you can do the same. You can browse by tag, for example (the one-word identifiers you attach to the page—as, in my most recent example: JFPowers books writers: three different tags).
I’ve just started using it, and it’s enormously handy and useful. When you install it, it adds a couple of buttons to Firefox, so you can readily click to tag a Web page and click to go to your own del.icio.us page.
Give it a go.
Cool shaving stuff from Canada
You didn’t think you would get away without a single shaving post, did you? (Vision razor today, still using the new Simpson Persian Jar 3, D. R. Harris Lavendar shaving cream, totally smooth shave…)
Thomas Anthony Company makes handcrafted shaving toys: brushes, bowls, stands, and the like. Some very handsome stuff that I thought you might like to see.
Morte d’Urban and good books
J.F. Powers wrote about priests, bishops, monks, and nuns: the people who chose to live and work within the organizational structure of the Catholic church. But, as people, they encounter and deal with the problems that beset us all: we are humans, and that is our common destiny. The problems for those who work in the Church have a specific context, but the problems, rightly treated, are our problems—your problems, my problems. Problems of ambition, misunderstanding, miscommunicating—problems in getting along, in winning, in losing…
Powers was a masterful writer, and his first novel, Morte d’Urban, had the property—common to many exceptional books—of seeming to change between readings. You read it, you understand it, you set it aside. A few years pass, and you pick it up to read it again. Sacre bleu! It’s a different novel! Somehow it’s totally changed, and you see a whole new story. A few years more go by, you read it again…
Stringfellow Barr told about the first time he read Macbeth. A precocious child, he was six and reading it with the help of his father. He talks of getting a cape and strutting about as Duncan—commenting that, to read Macbeth and get the impression that it’s about Duncan shows as profound a misreading of the play as it’s possible to do.
He read it again a year later, and thought, “You fool! You totally missed the point! You didn’t even understand what the play was about!” And, he said, the same thought has hit him every time he’s read the play since: each reading finds a new play making a new point. Read the rest of this entry »
The importance of not seeing
Daniel Goleman’s intriguing book Vital Lies, Simple Truths is well worth reading. In it, he explores the trade-offs involved in actually perceiving something clearly—tradeoffs that exist from cells to societies.
Generally speaking, perceiving something clearly carries with it a pain component. That’s why, for example, people who outsiders can clearly see are in terrible relationships often seem unaware of the problems: becoming aware is too painful.
And it’s why societies somehow overlook things such as the great number of homeless citizens, or the large and increasing millions of citizens who are locked up in prisons. By not being aware of these problems, the society can proceed without having to deal with them—those problems don’t exist, from the point of view of society at large.
One could, of course, see the cause as proceeding the other way: pain reducing awareness, so those who are in paint cannot clearly perceive. Read the book to see what he says. The link above will show you used copies at good prices.
Finding flow
I talked briefly about flow in an earlier post: the state of mind in which one is unconscious of self and time and totally focused on and absorbed in the activity underway. The Wikipedia entry on flow offers this:
As Csikszentmihalyi sees it, components of an experience of flow can be specifically enumerated; he presents eight:
- Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernable).
- Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
- A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
- Distorted sense of time – our subjective experience of time is altered.
- Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
- Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
- A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
- The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
Not all of these components are needed for flow to be experienced.
It occurred to me last night that recreational activities, in general, provide a way of achieving flow: playing Go or a pickup basketball, climbing a rock wall, building something—all are activities which, if they are activities one enjoys, are likely to induce flow. Indeed, what attracts us to them is perhaps at root the chance to experience flow.
The book Finding Flow offers a variety of ways for achieving this state.
