Category: Books

Werner Herzog in Pittsburgh?

August 29th, 2023

Herzog’s film school memories of a local family who took him in.

I loved the Franklins. With them, I got to know some of the best and deepest things about America. Later on, I invited them to Munich and took them to a party in Sachrang, the remote Bavarian village where I grew up. Hugs, beer, squeals. Contact became harder as much of the family, Billy included, seemed to fall further into religion. When I played the villain in a 2012 Hollywood action movie–it was called “Jack Reacher,” and the star, Tom Cruise, wanted me–the filming took place in Pittsburgh. But I couldn’t find the Franklins. I drove out to Fox Chapel. Almost everything in the area had changed; there were new buildings everywhere; it was depressing. The Franklins’ home was mostly unchanged; the lawn had the same old broad-leaved trees, but the path down to the garage was overgrown with flowering shrubs. There was no one home. I tried the neighbors, and learned that the house had changed owners several times. I knew that Evelyn Franklin had died. Two years later, I heard that Billy had died, too. He had been like a brother to me.
Herzog, Werner. (2023, August 21). The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. The New Yorker, 5–12. Retrieved from [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/the-mysteries-of-pittsburgh]

The best part of Werner Herzog is that you never know where he’ll appear – Mexico, Jack Reacher, The Mandalorian, Pittsburgh?
Curveball or slider? Don’t fear the embarrassing question with journalist Joe Posnanski

August 27th, 2023

In any case, I had a question for him, but it was an embarrassing one. I hesitated and delayed and dithered until finally I decided: What the hell? How often was I going to find myself sitting next to Billy Williams?

“Mr. Williams,” I asked, “what’s the difference between a curveball and a slider?”

A couple of the more grizzled veteran reporters were within earshot and, predictably, they laughed. I felt my face burn red. It was like asking Mozart the difference between the white and black keys on a piano. But Billy Williams put his hand on my shoulder, and he took my notepad, and he began to diagram the exact difference between the two pitches. For the next 20 or so minutes, he gave me a master class on the curveball and the slider, the challenges of hitting both, the variances between Bob Gibson’s slider and Steve Carlton’s slider, between Bert Blyleven’s curveball and Tom Seaver’s curveball.

And at the end of the lesson, he smiled at me and said: “Don’t let these other guys fool you. None of them knows the difference between a curveball and slider.
Posnanski, Joe. The Baseball 100. Maryland: Avid Reader Press, 2021

Often the embarrassing question, the obvious question, leads to true understanding.

Baseball is in the details.
Images and Metaphors from The Hero of Solferino

July 11th, 2023

Joseph Roth is a master of writing images and crafting metaphors. They are true, surprising, and specific.

Consider the following passages:

He observed the immense shadows cast by small objects on the bare blue walls; the gently curved shimmering outline of his sword hanging from its hook by the door, its dark ribbon tucked into the hilt. He listened to the ceaseless rain outside drumming on leaded window frames; and rose at last, having decided to go and see his father the following week,

and

He found the old gentleman in his shirtsleeves sitting in the kitchen of his quarters at a plain deal table covered with a dark-blue cloth edged in scarlet, a large cup of steaming, fragrant coffee in front of him.

This one he repeats:

His consonants rumbled like thunderbolts, the final syllables laden with small weights.

and

“shaking him as a hurricane shakes a feeble shrub”

From:

Roth, Joseph. “The Hero of Solferino.” Leadership: Essential Writings by Our Greatest Thinkers (Norton Anthology), edited by Elizabeth D. Samet, W. W. Norton & Company, 2015, pp. 69-82.
Two Quotes. Zissou & Zizou.

June 28th, 2023

Zissou:

Zissou has an almost magical connection to the life of the sea. He speaks its language fluently. I’ve never met a boy like that in all my life.
– Lord Mandrake

Zizou:

Zidane is the soccer player who, in my life, produced the greatest array of chills, thrills, and sheer enjoyment—a living spectacle who put on an amazing show every single day. The best description of him that I ever heard came from Jose Altafini: “The way he used his foot, it was as if he were spreading butter on a slice of bread.”
– Carlo Ancelotti
Stewart Brand’s paradox of maintenance

June 17th, 2023

Maintenance is absolutely necessary and maintenance is optional. It it easy to put off, and yet it has to be done. Defer now, regret later.

Neglect kills.

What to do?

Here’s a suggestion: Soften the paradox and the misbehavior it encourages by expanding the term “maintenance” beyond referring only to preventive maintenance to stave off the trauma of repair–brushing the damn teeth, etc. Let “maintenance” mean the whole grand process of keeping a thing going. In that perspective, occasional repair is part of the process. Close monitoring is part of the process. Changing the oil is part of the process. Eventually replacing the thing is part of the process.

This from Stewart’s upcoming book Maintenance: Of Everything. Stewart is taking a brave approach to draft this book. He’s using Books in Progress, a public drafting tool where he collaborates with readers draft by draft.

Innovation gets all the love. Maintence is overlooked. Even in terms of status, innovators are celebrated. Maintainers are hidden. This book seeks to change that.

You can follow his progress here: https://books.worksinprogress.co/
J.R.R. Tolkien’s overlooked inspiration

June 16th, 2023

And we start our portrait of Tolkien with his mother—a welcome surprise in this tale of a group that rigorously excluded women—because Mabel Tolkien set in motion her son’s madly spinning top of mind, from which epic poems, children’s stories, fantasy novels, invented languages, literary essays, philological studies, songs, watercolors, and pen-and-ink sketches would take flight for the next eighty years.
Zaleski, Carol, and Philip. The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. (see pg. 13)
Some quotes on the past

June 11th, 2023

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.“
From L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between

“The past is never dead; it’s not even past.“
William Faulkner

And from Breaking Bread with the Dead:

The decisions of our ancestors, however strange those people may be to us, touch us and our world; and our decisions will touch the lives of those who come after us. By understanding what moved them and what they hope for, we give ourselves a better chance of acting wisely-in some cases, as those ancestors did; in others, they didn’t. By understanding what moved them and what they hoped for, we give ourselves a better chance of acting wisely–in some cases, as those ancestors did; in others, as they didn’t. We judge them, as we should, as we must; but if we judge them fairly and proportionately, as we ourselves hope someday to be judged, then we may use them well with an eye toward the future.
Jacobs, Alan. Breaking bread with the dead: a reader’s guide to a more tranquil mind. New York: Penguin Press, 2020. (see page 143)

You often hear “Forget it! The past is in the past.” sure, but the consequences of our decisions can reverberate longer into the future than we expect.

Social movements like Effective Altruism and organizations like The Long Now Foundation recognize this. The better choices we make today, paired with long-term preparation can give our decendants a chance to flourish.

Too deep for a Sunday morning?
Striking Sentences from Chuck Dugan is AWOL: A Novel – With Maps, by Eric Chase Anderson

May 27th, 2023

My goal with this series is simply to collect and post sentences from the readings that struck me.

Sure, Chuck Dugan is AWOL: A Novel – With Maps isn’t Shakespeare. But who doesn’t enjoy a thrilling maritime adventure tale? It’s an underrated book, complete with illustrations. Certainly worth your time.

It was hurricane hair.
pg 63

The image this renders in your mind. That swirl on the crown on a young man’s head. Hurricane hair.

His kicks popped off the bone,
pg 64

This adds a bit of sound to the text. You can hear the “pop” of the kick coming off the bone. It’s both audible and visible.

He was not a defeatist. But the air was poison.
pg 127

Chuck keeps a positive attitude in a hostile situation. Respect.

He was a resilient person, not given over to negativity. But at a certain point, sooner or later, he was going to either:

a) freeze to death, or

b) drown.

Whichever came first.
pg.164

So much of this book is about Midshipman’s Chuck Dugan’s resilience. Floating at sea, stuck on Emergency Rescue Buoy No. 49, falling into a coma, no matter the obstacle Chuck Dugan carries on.

He passed under a wave and came up reciting the Midshipman’s Table of Priorities.

“Midshipmen –” he began, his voice cracked and faint. He spat out some water. ” – – will use the Table of Priorities when determining the precedence of one activity over another. ONE. Orders to report to the Superintendent, Commandant, Deputy Commandant.”

He went under. Slowly, he returned.

“TWO. Emergency calls for immediate medical and dental care. THREE . . .”

He disappeared.

“ELEVEN. Appointment with academic advisor

during pre-registration each semester . . . TWENTY – FOUR.

Liberty. “
pg 173

More notes on the benefits of committing ideas and rules to memory. Reciting poetry, your alphabet, or the Midshipman’s Table of Priorites can help one detach in a stressful situation. Also, the Table of Priorites is another detail that Eric Chase Anderson uses to construct the world of this maritime tale.

Chuck tried to consider the situation carefully,

but his thoughts were muddled. He didn’t want to

co-operate if he was a POW. There were rules to that:

strict Geneva Convention. Don’t co-operate, don’t give out more than your Name, Rank, and Serial Number.

Since this was his first experience as a captive – –

which he assumed he was, though he couldn’t remember

whose or which war – – he wanted to get it right.

pg 179

The benefits of committing rules and ideas to memory. They’ll help you handle yourself in threatening scenarios.

Chuck sat quietly for a moment. He took a sip of the coffee — Navy-style black and boiling hot. For an instant, he felt faint, his head reeling from the on-rush of heat.
pg 180

What’s the recipe for Navy coffee? Brew it black and boiling hot. Keep it that way post pour. Serve it in a hand-less mug. Boom Navy Coffee. Sip and smile.

More wonderful details Eric Chase Anderson uses to ground the story.

He longed – – briefly but intensely — for a tuna-fish sandwich and a cold glass of milk. Then decided coffee was very much all right. Mainly he felt curious.
pg. 183

We’ve all had those moments after a hard run, a long hike, or maybe after changing a tire, where being physically spent brings on intense hunger.

Perhaps this paid for the sin he had just committed. The sin of condemning those three boys to their deaths.
pg 195

This story, while filled with quips and diagrams and illustrations, is heavy. It has weight. Death lurks throughout the pages.

Anderson, Eric Chase. Chuck Dugan is AWOL: A Novel – With Maps. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2004.
What does impossible mean? From the 1972 Summit Series

April 29th, 2023

“Impossible only means that you haven’t found the solution yet.”

– someone
Morrison, Scott. 1972: The Series That Changed Hockey Forever. Toronto: Simon & Schuster Canada, 2022. (see page 243)

This from what looks to be a fantastic book on the 1972 Summit Series.

Don’t fret. I didn’t know what the Summit Series was either. It was an eight game hockey series between Canada and the Soviet Union. This was the first time NHL players filled the Canadian national team roster.

On the surface 1972 looks like a hockey book, but as I read on I discovered it’s a Canadian history book. It’s packed with historical moments most non-Canadians would know nothing of.

See the FLQ crisis. Crisis of national identity is not something unique to the last five years.
Illustrator Jean Jullien’s drawing origin story, as told by his parents

April 15th, 2023

JEAN JULLIEN: Can you remember when I first started to draw?

SYLVIE JULLIEN: As far as I’m concerned, you’ve always drawn. You’ve been doing it ever since you were able to pick up a pencil. You didn’t “learn”

BRUNO JULLIEN: You drew all the time, even on tablecloths when we were out at restaurants. It was your way of expressing yourself, of describing the tiniest routine events. You did this in sketchbooks that you would carry around with you, the ones we would offer you regularly. It was a ritual.

JJ: Yes, you gave me my first sketchbook. When I was at school in Quimper (a city in northwest France), my teacher Jacques Vincent encouraged us to keep a journal. There wasn’t much in the way of rules; the idea was to get us to draw and draw and draw so that we developed a visual language. And what better way to do that than to look for inspiration in what is around you? I think that my practice of drawing every day and my interest in everyday life come from that exercise.
Jullien, Jean. Jean Jullien. New York: Phaidon Press Inc, 2022. (see page 35)

Having Jean Jullien’s parents share his drawing origin story is a wonderful approach. Our origin stories must look different to our parents, who if they were around, watched them manifest in real time.

The idea of keeping a drawing journal seems beneficial for developing your own visual language. Your own style.

Keep drawing.

Category: Books

Herzog’s film school memories of a local family who took him in.