September 2009 Archives

Okay, I've listened to the song If I Had a Hammer about a hundred times since I embedded it in the blog. It was never a favorite of mine in my youth, but now I'm seriously hooked. Give it a listen once or twice and then jump to the 1:26 mark in the video and watch Mary sing. She's tossing her head around, feeling the song and it's just riveting, but at the point where she sings "It's the bell of freedom" watch how she drops her head pulls the note out and raises her head while she lifts this note up with amazing power. I'm in awe. I wish I had found this music before Mary passed away. I would have loved to have seen them in concert in their prime. Wow.

From the New York Times Sunday Book Review When Writers Speak, this is the closing paragraph of the article:

So the next time you hear a writer on the radio or catch him on the tube or watch him on the monitor or find yourself sitting next to him at dinner, remember he isn't the author of the books you admire; he's just someone visiting the world outside his study or office or wherever the hell he writes. Don't expect him to know the customs of the country, and try to forgive his trespasses when they occur. Speaking of dinner, when the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt told a friend, a Parisian doctor, that he wanted to meet a certifiable lunatic, he was invited to the doctor's home for supper. A few days later, Humboldt found himself placed at the dinner table between two men. One was polite, somewhat reserved, and didn't go in for small talk. The other, dressed in ill-matched clothes, chattered away on every subject under the sun, gesticulating wildly, while making horrible faces. When the meal was over, Humboldt turned to his host. "I like your lunatic," he whispered, indicating the talkative man. The host frowned. "But it's the other one who's the lunatic. The man you're pointing to is Monsieur Honoré de Balzac."

I was driving back from Portsmouth tonight along the coast on 1A and I had the radio blazing with the windows open. It was a wonderful night for a ride. The tunes stopped and an ad came on the station so I searched for the next piece of music I could find and I hit the beginning of Jimmy Cliff singing I Can See Clearly Now. It's always been a meaningful song to me...a song of hope and redemption.

The wind was blowing the scent of the ocean through the car and I was all alone on the road. I started singing with the man and when I came to the point where he says, "Here is that rainbow I've been praying for..." I just got torn open and all of the stuff inside of me worked its way out with a prevailing sense of joy. "Look all around, there's nothing but blue skies!" Thank you my Lord, I am a blessed man! I couldn't sing another lick because Jimmy busted me so wide open. I am a blessed man.

I went to Best Buy in Newington to pick up a cheap DVD player as ours went missing, and I found the young woman serving me from behind the register to be helpful and pleasant. Taking my own advice I searched out the store manager and told him how pleased I was with the service. His response was to note that more often than not people seek him out to complain and he was happy to hear something positive. I looked at him and said. "You look to be around my age. Have you ever read The One Minute Manager?" He had! So I reminded him how it advised the reader to catch people doing something well. I added, "I'm trying to incorporate that idea into my life."

Make a difference.

Have you ever heard of the product Endust? I've never thought about it or what its name meant. Well, now I'm on a cleaning jag and I've been dusting everything and the dust is still winning. What the hell's up with that? So, okay I get it. Endust. End dust. Yeah, yeah...just tell me what aisle it's in. (All domestic concerns aside, I'm quitting this business for the night and I'm going to watch some Sunday Night Football).

Hey Galileo! We haven't come that far...

Galileo walks into a bar just before last call, stands up on a stool and proclaims, "The sun will not rise tomorrow!" The bar patrons look at this man and in a chorus proclaim, "He must be mad...throw him out into the street." But Galileo persists, "It's true. Watch and you will see, the sun will not rise tomorrow." A few mutter in protest while others look around with uncertainty. Could it be true? And so a dialogue begins based largely on the speculations and prejudices of the chorus. It carries on into the night until one shouts out, "It's morning...let's go outside and we'll see who's right!" They stumble out as a crowd into the street and turn their attention to the east. Soon a waning darkness on the horizon gives way fully to tendrils of light. The sun! The chorus erupts in celebration, chastising the fool Galileo and rejoicing at the day's new dawn. Then the chorus fades into the morning light to seek out their respective homes, leaving Galileo alone in the street, his face still turned toward the sun. He bows his head, looking at his feet firmly set upon the ground, and he whispers to himself, "E pur si muove."

After having just read my That's That for That 'That' post again, I think if I have any dignity left I should delete it pretty quickly. It's the kind of writing that makes a reader think the author was about to suck the upholstery off his chair with a violent clenching action while putting it to the page. Just saying....

I think I'm going to make a cocktail and try to remember some off-color jokes. I'll post again after I shake off the trauma. Seriously, sometimes re-writing is the answer...sometimes the answer is hitting the delete button.

When the spirit moves I re-read and re-write, though my conviction is good writing is dependent on revision. Moved to look again at my last entry, Tacking Down the Basics, it became apparent revision was in order and it was more necessary than I'd like to admit. Competent writers could offer stylistic or technical criticisms of the post, but to me the most salient issue was the chronic abuse of the word 'that', which was scattered throughout the text. Now that I'm aware of it that's that for that 'that' problem.

My nephew was at C—'s house stacking wood today. I walked up to where he was working just as he was wrapping up the job and I began folding a big tarp used to cover the wood pile. Without a word he took the other end of the tarp, which was spread on the driveway, and began to help. There were no spoken directions and the most significant gesture was a glance or a tip of the head in one direction or another. The task was finished quickly and the tarp was stored for next year.

M— went into the house for a moment before he collected his things and made his way back home. I waited for him to come outside...there was something I wanted to tell him. When he stepped onto the patio I called him over and I told him this: I've worked for a company for many years and we hire young guys to work the jobs with us. Many of those guys don't get how to do a simple task like folding a tarp with someone and they're hard to work with because of it. M—, you've been playing high school football and it taught you something you might not even be aware of—something not all guys can do—and it makes a big difference: You've learned how to be a team player, you work with the other guys and you coordinate your efforts with them. It's a big part of becoming a man.

I remember my dad had a book that said you should catch people doing something right and make some noise about it. It puts a fire under them. Well, it's a good rule to live by and I try to find those moments. I caught M— doing something well and I let him know he'd done a good job—I was proud of him—because it's exciting to see him becoming a good man. That's worth putting a fire under.

An interesting observation from an employee at Home Depot today while I was looking for a CO detector. The combination smoke/carbon monoxide detectors seem impractical; because CO is heavier than air it sinks and smoke is lighter than air so it rises. So what do you do? Put it on the baseboard or high on the wall? Maybe you should put it waste high and hope for the best.

I usually don't worry about CO as this house is old and isn't going to make an effective basin for gas collection. This year though, I bought a small kerosene heater to heat the downstairs—I'm shutting off the upstairs to save energy—and there's the potential for CO issues.

Anyway...it's good to learn new things.

I'm cleaning the house in a religious manner with a borrowed Miele vacuum. Miele, anything else is a compromise.

Sunday @ 1:00 PM — Giants Stadium

Go Pats!

From the web regarding Sissela Bok's Lying: Moral Choice in Private and Public Life: Sissela Bok on lying and moral choice in private and public life - an amplification By Robert K. Fullinwider—link

I read Lying years ago and it was the cause of debates with an advocate of what I've termed 'moral deception'. Although I saw reason in arguments from the position of moral deception, e.g. lying to save someones life, I struggled with the issues of faulty reasoning, moral incompetence, and impaired judgment in the decision making process as the basis for criticism. My position held the circumstances warranting moral deception were at the fringes of human experience in 21st century America, but my observation admittedly was subjective, though worthy of further consideration. My arguments erred on the side of radical honesty.

In the conclusion of Fullinwider's article he offers a litmus test for the moral argument, which I include below the fold. What do you think about Bok's perspective? Is Fullwinder's test effective or persuasive? Read it and decide for yourself.

I went to check on a place up north for C— and I had an amazing drive; I left it all behind and got into my head thinking about everything that's going on in my life. There was the right kind music on the radio and it was a silver-lined day for an unhurried ride. It made me happy.

I'm going to head up again soon and take a weekend before the serious leaf-peepers hit the mountains. Maybe I can get in the zone and find the inspiration for some projects I'm considering; getting loosened up and relaxed opens up my creativity and I feel it's time to plug back into it.

I just want to apologize in advance for having posted the The Secret to Successful Blogging entry. Sorry....

I was reading a book - which shall remain unnamed because I can't find it right now - about making a million dollars online. Now mind you I wasn't hopeful that the answer to the question was in that book, but they may be onto something. Basically, it tells you to make a website that promises to show people the secret to making a million dollars online. Okay, so I'm thinking the guy who wrote the book was making some money. I don't know if he would have been near the seven figure mark, but I'm thinking there's a method to all of this madness...an oily, slimy method.

So I've developed my own system for making a lot money from blogging in your spare time in just a few minutes each day! Just follow the link for the first step to an easy life and big money.

And I don't want to talk about it. Man, life.....