Everyone wants to hear my New Year’s resolution. Why? Do they have something in mind, but they’re hoping I’ll come up with it on my own? Last year was pretty good. There were some things I probably could have done without (hurricanes, &tc), but on the whole, no complaints. It could have been a lot worse. How did I manage such a relatively carefree existence? I resolved not to resolve.
This year my resolution is the same as last. Please stop asking me what my resolution is. YOUR New Year’s resolution should be to read my blog, every day. If that sounds like an lot of work, subscribe to my Site Feed with NewsGator. Whatever I accidentally accomplish in the next year will be pure grace-given happenstance. If I lose ten pounds, it’s most likely from some tropical wasting disease, or maybe I’m playing more tennis. If I meet the girl of my dreams, it’s highly unlikely that it’s through any scheme of my own. If I save a treed kitten, I probably just broke it’s fall. You get my drift.
What, after all, is a New Year’s Resolution, but our first opportunity to fail. It’s possible, intrepid resolver, that you will succeed, but it’s not likely. Why should this be? Here’s my theory - things that we are forced to RESOLVE are precisely the things that we don’t really want to do. It’s something that is either too hard, requires free time we don’t have, or is something we would like to know how to do or be known for doing, the actual doing of which we want no part of. If we really wanted to do these things, we wouldn’t have waited until New Year’s Eve came around and we were too tipsy on Champagne to realize what we were committing ourselves too.
If you want to accomplish something, don’t resolve. Just do it.
The New York Times follows up with another article on the shaky emergence of rule by law in China with Seeking a Public Voice on China’s ‘Angry River’, using the controversy of the proposed dam on the Nu River to illustrate the battle between Chinese environmental groups and the government.
I celebrated Christmas like a good little American and disposed of all my available income. Just doing my part for the economy. I’m told our second annual Feliz Navidad Party went off well. I wouldn’t know. My favorite mediterannean restaurant food poisoned me a day or two prior and I spent most of it passed out in my bedroom. Hope everybody else had a good time. I made the rounds and between Albuquerque, Dallas and Houston I got to see most of the family. Good Christmas.
My gifts two you, faithful reader, are two Christmas classics. If you’ve ever happened to be near a TV on Christmas Day in the past 20 years, you’ve probably seen A Christmas Story, but have you seen it with adorable cartoon bunnies or as a trailer to a horror flick?
Classic #2, is the immortal Texas Christmas Story, Robert Earl Keen’s Merry Christmas from the Family. Take a listen to this live version on mp3 or just read the lyrics if you’re at work, surrounded by family members easily offended at racial stereotypes, however lovingly portrayed, or have an eggnog hangover. If no one’s around, turn the speakers up and watch this creepy video version from Jill “I kissed a girl” Sobule. There’s also a Dixie Chicks version with Rosie O’Donnell, but you’ll have to find that for yourself.
Yes, gentle reader, I am in New Mexico, land of blue tortillas and thick adobe walls that thwart the wireless networks of even the most well-intentioned. I’ll be here until the 20th.
Observation #1 - The selection in used book stores is significantly better in Albuquerque than in Houston. As to why should be the case, I submit several premises for the theses of aspiring graduate students of economics and/or those who work in used book stores - (a) cheaper real estate in Houston makes the cost of bookshelf space less less per book, increasing demand, decreasing supply (b) people in Albuquerque have given up trying to hang shelves on adobe walls and prefer to sell back their books ( c) Houstonians use their old books to build fires in their (fake) fireplaces when the temperature drops below 65, decreasing supply (d) Albuquerque is full of English majors forced to pawn their books to pay their student loans, increasing supply (e) the other Luke Gilman that lives in Houston has already bought all the books I would want to buy, a very doppelgangerish thing to do (f) I myself already bought all the books I like in Houston, time to move.
So far I’ve got Robert Montgomery’s account of the Sacco & Venzetti trial (starting to become a minor obsession), Paul Johnson’s Modern Times, and a fascinating privately printed Complete Works of Rabelais with wonderful illustrations (top right). Interestingly, Rabelais only wrote one book which makes a “Complete Works” somewhat deceptive, but wonderful marketing.
Up to Santa Fe tomorrow where, never fear, at least another observation will likely be made.
I put a lot of thought into this site, contrary to appearances, but some times I can’t find a place for all the little fragments of life that don’t quite seem blog-worthy on their own. I hereby decree Friday as mental garbage pick up day. Bon appetit.
Party Like It’s 1992 Remember Bee Girl? Oh c’mon, she remembers you. Some of those albums hold up surprisingly well over the test of time. This is one of them. A lot more rockin than I remember. Grab a copy of Blind Melon off Amazon for 84 cents (plus shipping)
A few of my favorite things
Along the lines of my favorite confessional postcard service PostSecret (on which I posted previously), Every Object Tells a Story is a collaborative site on the meaning of things hosted by an assortment of British culturati. Upload a picture or video to tell the story of some object that has special significance. Mostly I find it interesting because I have an idea of something inappropriate I can post there later.
Incoming! Speaking of special significance, Shane Maberry clued me in on a new google bomb peeking its nose up into general social relevance as the keyword “failure” has been generating a funny, albeit predictable, and heartbreaking if you really think about it first result. Even funnier in a more indirect way is the second search result, which seems a bit weak as a retaliatory gesture, and in response to which the MM webmaster has employed an admirable “i’m rubber and you’re glue” redirect, as if to say, ‘Oh yeah, I totally meant for that to happen.’ If you have no idea what I’m talking about, bone up on your google-bombing courtesy of Wikipedia or get wildly deconstructive with the matter at First Monday.
Above: weird light fixture at Emerson College Media Services
Just wanted to let the casual onlooker know that I’ve updated the Photos section of this website. I’ve blended my flickr stream with a few sets of pix from some of the more memorable trips or events, organized and annotated in into slideshows. The plan is to add more as I get around to it. For now, I’ve uploaded pix from the fun weekend we had fleeing from Hurricane Rita and Kris, Dustin and I fly-fishing in Montana last summer.
I’m happy to report that the Devil is alive and well and living in Portland. After a long hiatus I was beginning wonder, but the Devil is working as a media buyer, just had a baby girl, and still manages to rage like it’s 1997 every now and then.
He’s the Devil. He know’s it. I know it. Why can’t he just admit it?
I feel like the last one on the bandwagon, but in case there is still anyone out there who hasn’t heard of Getting Things Done (GTD to the cognoscenti) I can’t recommend it highly enough. I was a little skeptical when my coach first recommended it, but now I’m a convert and I feel like sharing. GTD is a personal productivity methodology pioneered by author David Allen but recently it’s started to take on a life of its own. The best overview I’ve found is from 43 folders which does a great job of laying out the basic principles.
Here’s how I would sum it up: At any given moment your brain is juggling all of your tasks, responsibilities, wishes and dreams, recycling reminders through your conscious mind in order to keep from forgetting, interrupting your thoughts at times when you can’t do anything about it. As a result, your mind is constantly distracted by these reminders, thwarting your attempts to concentrate, to get organized and to plan your day with any semblance of sanity. Allen contends that the way to quiet these reminders and free your mind for productive, creative work is to quickly tag and organize these to-dos into actionable tasks and file them in a system your mind will trust to remind you at the appropriate time. Once your mind is satisfied that the task won’t be forgotten, it quits trying to remind you and allows you to focus on the task at hand.
That’s the premise, there are lots of ways to implement such a system. The 43 Folders site takes it’s name from the number of folders (12 months, 31 days) used to build a physical “tickler” file to remind yourself of tasks at the appropriate time. For those of you who shudder at the thought of using a technique so barbaric and undigital, I’ve just downloaded a trial of a Outlook Plug-in. Whichever way you cut it, it’s a great way to start thinking about and improving your productivity.
According to the site, “HEL LOOKS is selected street fashion from Helsinki, the capital of Finland. The pictures are taken in the streets and clubs of Helsinki from July 2005 onwards.” I’m kind of curious as to why all these Fins dress like my friends Josh & Mariah. Things that make you go hmmmmm……
OR cats secretly control the internet. Those are the only plausible explanations I can think of for why sites like My Cat Hates You, Stuff on My Cat and Kitten War exist. More evidence for the latter is the very Hostetlerian Infinite Cat Project.
Closer to home, my Dad has started to send out cat pictures. This should be a cautionary tale for all of you who work at home. Consulting is not without its dangers. His wife has two cats and he has taken pictures of them frolicking around the house and then e-mails them to people with cute captions. At first I thought he might be going through a phase or trying to make nice with the wife, but then he sent out this one on the right. It was the cat he had as a kid. I had to face the truth. He’s always been that way. I should have seen the signs. They were so obvious looking back at it. He always went out of his way to pet other peoples cats, and lingered just a little too long rubbing their tummies. Cat lovers aren’t products of social factors or just making a lifestyle choice. They’re born that way. We just have to own up to the truth and love them for who they are.
I did a quick post on the world’s greatest blog not too long ago, but I overlooked the potential for po-mo humor in the blog comments. This is not intentional humor, mind you, but the general situational humor of well-meaning folks who, when confronted with the magnificence of eggagog’s posts, feel compelled to respond in kind, an effect which is devastatingly hilarious in its combination of nonfunniness and try-hardiness.
This is quite possibly the nicest comment I’ve received on my blog, in reference to this post:
thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! I’ve been looking for soduku for my Treo for ages! Our newspaper just started printing it as well. However, we have 4 people that fight over it in our family. So at least I’ll get my own crack at it it without having to get sloppy seconds from my mom, dad or husband!!! Your blog was a lifesaver.
~ Whitney
Aw… .warm fuzzy. You see, lurkers! That’s how you do it. You read something useful or interesting and right about the time you’re thinking, “Gee, that’s really useful and/or interesting” that’s about the time you should be tapping out a note to me telling me how useful and amazingly interesting it was. Why? Because then I feel like less of a pathetic loser for spending all my free time blogging (try explaining THAT to you grandmother as a reason you’re not married yet) instead of doing more useful, socially-acceptable, money-earning, and/or baby-making activities.
She may be in Budapest, but she can still keep in touch. We want lots and lots of pictures, Jessie, lots and lots of pictures. Visit Jessie Foltz on the web. I do believe I have ushered in a new design era of Hoosier-chic.
Students in the state of New York are like most people, I think, in that 80 percent of them think organ donation is a good idea, but only 11 percent have done anything about it, according to a recent study. The authors’ solution is to propose, predictably, I think, a somewhat amorphous ‘information campaign’.
It immediately brought to mind an anecdote from Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point in which he describes Howard Levanthal’s ‘fear experiments’ at Yale in the 60’s. Levanthal wanted to see if more students got free tetanus shots depending on whether or not they received one of three progressively scary booklet explaining the dangers of tetanus. What Levanthal found was that while those receiving the scarier booklets were more convinced of the dangers, the number of students getting the shot remained the same. It wasn’t until Levanthal added included the hours of availablity and a map to the location that he was able to push the vaccination rate from 3% to 28%. I can’t help but wonder if there’s a similar dynamic in organ donation.
You know you’ve made the big time when you find an entry for yourself in the Internet Movie Database. That’s Luke Gilman, world-famous-grip, extraordinaire. If you don’t know what a grip is, it’s pretty self-explanatory, and every bit as glamorous as you might guess. The entry comes from “Rinsed” aka “Brief Encounter,” the first student film I worked on at Emerson College, which was directed by Doug Martin, a good director and a pretty damn nice guy if memory serves. Doug voodooed a laughable budget from Frames per Second, the student-film society at Emerson to into glorious 35mm, albeit B&W. Definitely one of the better films FPS did while I was there. If I get a chance, I’ll post a few pix of myself freezing on top of a Penske truck holding a flag.
For those of you who are too lazy to bother to come back to my blog to read me in the future (you know who you are), waddle on over to my shiny new e-mail subscription page and you can get new posts by e-mail.
In a recent interview in Toronto, Martin asserted that real value creation now comes from using the designer’s foremost competitive weapon, his imagination, to peer into a mystery – a problem that we recognize but don’t understand – and to devise a rough solution that explains it. “For any company that chooses to innovate, the foremost challenge is this,” Martin says. “Are you willing to step back and ask, ‘What’s the problem we’re trying to solve?’ Well, that’s what designers do: They take on a mystery, some abstract challenge, and they try to create a solution.”
Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution has announced he is undertaking some research into the economics of BBQ, seemingly oblivious to the furor he is courting by delving into so sensitive a subject. The Carolinians will predictably start squealing about their pulled pork, and on down the sea coast it will go, a vast cacophony of footstomping and chestbeating, until it finally comes back to Texas, the land in which BBQ found its perfection.
On an tenuously related note, has anyone else noticed that Unagi tastes an awful lot like BBQ?
This has probably been there the whole time and I just missed it, but KCRW’s ever-wonderful show Morning Becomes Eclectic has an RSS Feed! [copy link feed here] RSS continues to blow up. It’s only a matter of time before it tips…
James Watson is not just smart, he’s wicked smart (as we mainers would say) and yet he’s as down to earth as he could be. It was wonderful to hear the man in person, speaking at the Farfel Lecture last night at the University of Houston. Particularly gratifying was the revelation that Nobel Prize winners can be bad a math (he thinks a C in Calculus kept him out of CalTech), and he attributes much of his success not to great intellectual prowess (although we can assume) but to his ability to get along with people like Francis Crick. In another funny and eye-opening account, he told of Lawrence Bragg’s desire to get rid of Crick, thwarted only by the fact that at 35, Crick still hadn’t completed his PhD. More poignant was his discussion of Rosalind Franklin whom he seemed to believe would have discovered the structure of DNA herself if she had been more open to the kind of collaborative relationship he and Crick shared. He returned to that theme in the question and answer period in which his principle advice to anyone who was engaged in research was to find a partner, someone to bounce ideas off, someone to disabuse one of ones conceits and prejudices.
A note on the Farfel Lectures, the U of H PR department is apparently big on whisper-campaigns and I only found out about Watson’s talk through a Google News alert from some medical journal, but I have since discovered the UH Newsroom buried on the website. Coming up soon… Cornel West. They also let you know about the latest 5% tuition hike… guess they’ve got to pay for all those new buildings somehow.
I’m not usually one to check the bylines of every bit of news I read, but every now and again a journalist whose writing is so consitently good I find myself looking up to see who wrote it and finding the same name again and again. Malcolm Gladwell is one of these. Today I was reminded of another such journalist, John Heilemann, whose recent story from Men.Style.com, Journey to the (Revoltionary, Evil-Hating, Cash-Crazy, and Possibly Self-Destructive) Center of Google, whose articles for Wired Magazine caught my eye many years ago. He’s still at it and just as good as ever. Check him out.
For some reason, we seem to like to wait until people die to honor them for their lives and achievements. That’s how I discovered Jim Flora’s work, this weekend through an article in the NY Times (via Boing Boing). I think it’s silly, in general, to talk about images, but his are pretty amazing.
(GTD to the cognoscenti) I can’t recommend it highly enough. I was a little skeptical when my coach first recommended it, but now I’m a convert and I feel like sharing. GTD is a personal productivity methodology pioneered by author David Allen but recently it’s started to take on a life of its own. The best overview I’ve found is from 
