Once we start to look find no shortage of suggestions forms in our kettles
Adapted from the book, The Architecture of Happiness (2009, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton, and the passage:
Once we start to look, we will find no shortage of suggestions of living forms in the furniture and houses around us. There are penguins in our water jugs and stout and self-important personages in our kettles, graceful deer in our desks and oxen in our dining-room tables.
According the The New York Review of Books, this is “A perceptive, thoughtful, original, and richly illustrated exercise in the dramatic personification of buildings of all sorts.”
What I find irrestible in reading Mr. de Botton is his use of language.
I get the feeling that if you made a spread sheet of all the words, adverbs and adjectives used by Mr. de Botton, you just might find that he used each word just once.
call works beautiful when they succeed in evoking the significant
Adapted from the book, The Architecture of Happiness (2009, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton, and the passage:
Secondly, our reasons for liking abstract sculptures, and by extension tables and columns, are not in the end so far removed from our reasons for honouring representational scenes. We call works in both genres beautiful when they succeed in evoking what seem to us the most attractive, significant attributes of human beings and animals.
According the The New York Review of Books, this is “A perceptive, thoughtful, original, and richly illustrated exercise in the dramatic personification of buildings of all sorts.”
What I find irrestible in reading Mr. de Botton is his use of language.
I get the feeling that if you made a spread sheet of all the words, adverbs and adjectives used by Mr. de Botton, you just might find that he used each word just once.
As you might guess, Mr. Gutierrez is the President and CEO of an NHL Hockey Team, the Phoenix Coyotes.
He was speaking to the reports the the NHL team is changing its logo back to the original logo in an effort to ” . . . to embrace the entire region and highlight the Coyotes’ emphasis on reaching out to communities that have not traditionally been home to hockey fans.“
I recently moved from the city of Atlanta.
A city that saw two NHL teams, the Flames (now in Calgary) and the Thrashers (now the Winnipeg Jets #2 – the first Winnipeg Jets are now, oddly enough the Phoenix Coyotes) leave the city.
Most Atlantean’s never caught on that the Thrashers were not named after people who might be involved in a fight but for the Georgia State Bird, the Brown Thrashers.
When the team announced they were leaving, the TV station I worked at sent crews out to interview disgruntled fans.
They couldn’t find any.
Not saying they couldn’t find any disgruntled Thrasher fans.
They couldn’t find ANY Thrasher’s hockey fans period.
Nine of ten people in the Atlanta area moved from somewhere else.
If anyone went to a NHL game in Atlanta, they went to see their old team.
Members of the Thrasher’s said it was like playing a season long road trip.
Hockey in the southland.
It works in some places and it doesn’t in others.
It seems to have worked in Tampa Bay but maybe those three Stanley Cup Championships helped.
That’s more championships than 20 other teams in the NHL, 11 of which have never won a championship.
Phoenix feels it has the answer to the fan problem and that this re-retro-branding will show that the “Coyotes intend to be focused on their commitment to impact, inclusivity and innovation.“
Notice, it doesn’t say anything about winning . . .
Maybe I am missing something here.
But then again, maybe I am not.
I was just reading an article the other day where in the course of article I was reading there was the statement somewhat along the line of, “The number one rule of travel writing is do not write an article recommending that no one visit somewhere that no one would ever want to visit in the first place.”
Isn’t the first question about how to market NHL hockey in Arizona, why is there NHL hockey in Arizona?
The Swamp Castle dialogue from the movie, “Search for the Holy Grail” comes to mind.
Side note, if you needed me to use the official title of the movie, “Monty Python andthe Holy Grail“, please don’t tell me.
DAD: Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show ’em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp, but the fourth one… stayed up! And that’s what you’re gonna get, lad: the strongest castle in these islands.
SON: B– but I don’t want land.
DAD: We live in a bloody swamp. We need all the land we can get.
Can’t you just hear it?
Xavier A. Gutierrez: Listen, lad. I built this NHL team up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was desert Other NHL Owners said I was daft to build an NHL team in the desert, but I built it all the same, just to show ’em. It sank into the desert. So, I built a second one. That sank into the desert. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the desert, but the fourth one… stayed up! And that’s what you’re gonna get, lad: the strongest NHL franchise in the Arizona.
ANYONE in ARIZONA: B– but I don’t want ICE.
Xavier A. Gutierrez: We live in a bloody desert. We need all the ice we can get.
It was Fran Liebowitz, during an on-air discussion with Spike Lee on who was the greater artist, Duke Ellington or Michael Jordan, who said:
I really think that musicians, probably musicians and cooks, are responsible for the most pleasure in human life.
Motown music, which was very popular when I was a teenager— whenever I hear it, I instantly become happier.
This is true of almost nothing!
That’s a very important thing to do for human beings.
Music makes people happier, and it doesn’t harm them.
Most things that make you feel better are harmful.
It’s very unusual.
It’s like a drug, that doesn’t kill you.
One of the few redeeming aspects of the world wide web has to be the access it gives to music.
This is a theme I have pounded out often.
No King, Monarch, Emperor, Despot, Billionaire or otherwise-influencer has had the access to music we have.
Andrew Carnegie owned a castle in Scotland that had a Pipe Organ as big as the one in Carnegie Hall in New York.
Mr. Carnegie also kept an organist on his household staff full time with instructions to start playing at 7:30am as Mr. Carnegie’s own personal alarm clock.
I guess Mr. Carnegie had no problems sleeping despite what was going on during the Homestead Strike back in the US but I digress.
That’s what you needed if you wanted music in your morning back in the day.
With my iPhone, I don’t think there is a piece of recorded music that I cannot access anytime anywhere.
Stop and think about that.
It is beyond belief and the imagination.
No writer of fantasy or sci-fi ever never imagined such a gift to humanity.
And I embrace it.
I love to come across obscure references to music in my reading.
I really love it when I am reading on my iPad over my kindles and phone and older iPad.
I have too many devices with too many books.
Where I used to leave books all over, I now leave my devices all over.
I am getting in the bad habit of wanting to leave a current book open on a device so I grab another one to read other things much like I would leave open books all over the place.
Which calls to mind an old argument.
Aren’t bookmarks really placemarks?
They mark your place in the book.
A big sign that says, YOUR BOOK HERE, would be a bookmark.
Which brings to mind another thought.
Finding things like your book and searching for where you last left it.
Search is nothing new it just seems new due to the inability for anyone to find anything online.
But folks think its new for some reason and even came up with what they think are new ways to help online users find what they are looking for.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of my latest worries.
It purports to be a field of technology that helps web designers design websites that are easier to find.
It is also so much snake oil.
The Google has announced that it pays no attention to SEO.
Sometimes I feel that I may be one of the few people in the world who read announcements made by the Google.
That’s not a problem as the Google is big, its doesn’t read its own annoucements either and the left hand and the right hand of google are never on the same keyboard.
Still most companies make a big deal about their website being up on SEO.
I try to explain to my bosses.
There are two hamburger stands side by side.
One place is on facebook and practices SEO.
The other makes, without argument, the best hamburger in the seven dials.
Then I ask, “Which place is busier?”
Without fail two things are said.
The first is, of course the best hamburgers in the seven dials is the busiest.
Then I am asked, “What are we doing for SEO?”
But there are folks making good money selling SEO so why should I worry.
I just think instead of SEO it should be labeled, Dr. Seachgood’s Patented Tech Tips to Improve Online Life and Feel Better.
Folks have never ever been able to find anything.
Columbus went looking for India and found America in the way.
Back in the day I worked for a couple of years at the Cascade Branch of the Kent District Library.
This was the old library that shared a buidling with the local fire department.
I am not saying it was small but that’s because there are words like tiny …. minute.
Still folks had trouble finding things in the library which is why Librarians were invented.
Simple, right?
That was pretty much the deal with books, libraries and librarians until someone couldn’t stand it anymore and library administration and administrators were invented to muck it all up.
The Cascade Library had a great collection of books on tape.
They were located on the shelves opposite the check out desk.
So close and yet so far, patrons had trouble finding the books on tape.
I decided to optimize the books on tape section for search.
I took one of those giant 4 by 3 foot pieces of red poster board and cut out rectangles on each corner to make a BIG T.
I then cut a point at the bottom of the vertical bar of the T.
I hung the BIG T over the shelves of books on tape and the point pointing right at the section.
The next time a patron asked where the books on tape were, I smiled, pointed over their shoulder and proudly said, “Right there, under the BIG T.”
The patron turned a looked for a moment.
Then looked back at me and said, “Where is this BIG T?”
BUT I DIGRESS.
Music.
Access to music.
Stay on topic can’t you???
Gee whiz.
The other day I was reading happily along.
Got to stop again.
Ain’t that a great phrase?
Reading happily along.
Admit it.
You smiled.
I was reading happily along through a book titled, “The Cure for Anything Is Salt Water: How I Threw My Life Overboard and Found Happiness at Sea” by Mary South.
I admit that such a grandiose title with far reaching claims needs to be taken with a large handful of grains of salt but Ms. South relates her passage of self-discovery in a charming, gee I wish I could this but boy am I glad I not, way that lets you follow her passage without the usual cynicism that I find in myself when reading such books.
Either that or me now living by the sea has made my brain more open to accepting such claims and just enjoying such stories.
Along the way, Ms. Rose relates how at a stop in Point Pleasant, NJ, she found a restaurant about which she wrote:
It was an unpretentious place with a great menu and a homey atmosphere.
Best of all, there was a jazz duet playing-one guy on keyboards and one on guitar.
I asked them if they could play “Wave” and they looked thrilled that someone was actually listening.
She asked them if they could play “Wave.”
Really?
She asked for a song named “Wave?”
Sure, I once asked Nancy Faust, the renowned organist at Old Comiskey Park if she could play the Michigan Fight Sound.
Ms. Faust lit up with a smile and said, ‘The Victors? SURE!’
And she did.
Then she ruined the moment when she segued into that notre dame song.
But everyone knows the Victors.
Wave?
Really?
Ms. South writes, “I got “Wave” and then I got two or three other Brazilian classics without asking. Point Pleasant beach was saved. I’d even go back in a car, if I had to.”
I had to find out.
I clicked over to YouTube and entered Wave into the search bar.
I thought about it a bit and added, jazz classic.
And I got Antonio Carlos Jobim – Wave 1967 – YouTube.
And I clicked and I got:
I got instantly happy.
It was very unusal.
It was like a drug, that doesn’t kill you.
Turns out Wave us a bossanova classic
Besides the music, just saying, let alone typing, bossa nova, makes you laugh out loud.
According to wikipedia, Antonio Carlos Jobim “was a Brazilian composer, pianist, songwriter, arranger and singer. Considered one of the great exponents of Brazilian music, Jobim internationalized bossa nova and, with the help of important American artists, merged it with jazz in the 1960s to create a new sound with popular success. As such he is sometimes known as the “father of bossa nova“
these things can be done if person is desperate enough, and I was
Adapted from the book, Searching for Schindler by Thomas Keneally (2007 by The Serpentine Publishing Co., Pty., Ltd.) and the passage:
We Australians didn’t think of ourselves as viable practitioners of writing, for the arts were something which happened elsewhere, in western Europe. Nearly all the literature I had read came from elsewhere, from landscapes foreign to me, from seasons which were the reverse of seasons in Australia. The term “Australian literature” would – if uttered in London by a comedian like Barry Humphries/Dame Edna – draw fits of hilarity from a British audience, and would be considered amusing even in Australia, like the idea of a dog riding a bicycle. However, I finished my summer novel in April 1963. These things can be done while holding down a job if a person is desperate enough, and I was desperate to find a place in the world I had once renounced to enter the seminary and was now anxious to re-find.
Searching for Schindler is the book behind the book, Schindler’s List.
Thomas Keneally’s use of language and ‘being from Australia’ in an ‘Oh are you from Australia?’ world, his anecdotes are worth the read.
