Cary Grant is the urban, sophisticated king of the screwball comedy.
Nancy Meyers
Category: History
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In this period of my father’s life there are two things which it is impossible not to be struck with: one of them unfortunately a very common circumstance, the other a most uncommon one. The first is, that in his position, with no resource but the precarious one of writing in periodicals, he married and had a large family; conduct than which nothing could be more opposed, both as a matter of good sense and of duty, to the opinions which, at least at a later period of life, he strenuously upheld. The other circumstance, is the extraordinary energy which was required to lead the life he led, with the disadvantages under which he labored from the first, and with those which he brought upon himself by his marriage. It would have been no small thing, had he done no more than to support himself and his family during so many years by writing, without ever being in debt, or in any pecuniary difficulty; holding, as he did, opinions, both in politics and in religion, which were more odius to all persons of influence, and to the common run of prosperous Englishmen, in that generation than either before or since; and being not only a man whom nothing would have induced to write against his convictions, but one who invariably threw into everything he wrote, as much of his convictions as he thought the circumstances would in any way permit: being, it must also be said, one who never did anything negligently; never undertook any task, literary or other, on which he did not conscientiously bestow all the labor necessary for performing it adequately.
The Greek and Arithmetic lessons weren’t the only disciplines James taught John Stuart, it was the energy, the willing to take on more responsibility, and personal discipline that he modeled.
Mill, John Stuart. Autobiography. United Kingdom, Penguin Publishing Group, 1989.
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You have to know what history is relevant. You have to know what history to extract.
– Henry KissingerA polarizing, complex, historical figure.
Someone worth studying.
Ferguson, Niall. Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist. United Kingdom, Penguin Publishing Group, 2016. pp835
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Musk’s indisputable work ethic was forged in Canada?
Musk started doing some work on his cousin’s farm. He grew vegetables and shoveled out grain bins. Musk celebrated his eighteenth birthday there, sharing a cake with the family. Throughout the rest of the year, Musk hopped from city to city, working odd jobs. At one point, for example, he learned to cut logs with a chainsaw in Vancouver, British Columbia.
pp44Musk also took on hazardous jobs for better pay. Reminds me of Richard Linklater’s years on oil rigs off the Texas coast…
Musk found some of his jobs by going to the local employment offices where companies posted requests for work. He was told that the best-paying job–because of the hazards involved–was cleaning boilers at a lumber mill, so he decided to try that. “You have to put on this hazmat suit and then shimmy through this little tunnel that you can barely fit in,” Musk said. “Then you have a shovel and you take the sand and goop and other residue, which is still steaming hot, and you have to shovel it through the same hole you came through. There is no escape. Someone else on the other side has to shovel it into a wheelbarrow. If you stay in there for more than thirty minutes, you get too hot and die.” Thirty people started out at the beginning of the week to give the job a try. By the end of the week, it was just Musk and two other men doing the work.
pp44, 45This is not TIME Person of the Year Elon Musk, and yet somehow it still is.
Picture books are underrated, but I’m learning children’s books are underrated. This adapted version of Ashlee’s Vance Elon Musk biography has been inspiring so far.
Blazing through it.
Also see John Meacham’s adapted version of his Thomas Jefferson biography: Thomas Jefferson President and Philosopher
Vance, Ashlee. Elon Musk and the Quest for a Fantastic Future Young Readers’ Edition. United States, HarperCollins, 2017.
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It was Rodrigo Buendía. He had been quiet all morning, puffing away at a succession of cigars, walking back and forth across Diamond Green as if taking the measure of it. The confinement he and the others had undergone, in a lightless cell in the wagon sledge, had been hardest on him; Cinquefoil had told Ethan that the slugger even wept in his sleep. “Waste of time, dude. We should be out there warming up. Sprints. Bunt work–fielding and laying them down. And then a couple of hours of BP. You, little fox dude, you going to be in center today. When the last time you played ball?”
“Fifteen sixy-nine,” Cutbelly said at once. “I hit into three double plays.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Buendía said.
Chabon, Michael. Summerland. United States, Thorndike Press, 2003. pp460
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In this, Kurosawa-tenno was really something of an emperor among directors, seemingly born for the role. A single defining trait as a great film craftsman would be impossible to pinpoint — Kurosawa was one of the all-time greats at blocking, one of the all time greats at pulling powerful performances from actors. At shooting in color, at shooting in black and white; at vertical compositions in Academy ratio and at perfectly balanced framings in anamorphic widescreen. At quick cutting, at holding a long take, at movement, at stillness. At using score, at sourcing music, at choosing and mixing sound. At deeply researched period pieces, at portraits of modern life; at using complex sets, at finding stunning locations. At wrangling even the weather itself, his constant bane and frequent boon — his scenes are set by wind-whipping grass, muddy cloudbursts, volcanic steam and eldritch ice-mists, heatstruck streets and frostbitten hinterlands, lung-spasmingly brisk autumn air. What he couldn’t find, he made. What he couldn’t make, he waited for.
Not to mention he wrote or cowrote every one of his movie’s screenplays. The list of required skills for a director is endless, but Kurosawa is maybe the closest to filling every bubble.
Wilford, Lauren, and Stevenson, Ryan. The Wes Anderson Collection: Isle of Dogs. United States, ABRAMS, 2018. pp26
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When, on Halloween 1962, Thelonious Monk entered Columbia Records’ 30th Street Studios, New York, for the first time, he had a few old tricks and plenty of fresh treats in store for his then-expanding audience.
Writer unknown. From the backcover of the CD case 🙂Let this spin on repeat:
“I say, play your own way. Don’t play what the public want – you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing – even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.”
– Thelonious Monk. The Jazz Review. Interview with Grover Sales. -
In like manner, almost all the fictions of the last age will vanish, if you deprive them of a hermit and a wood, a battle and a shipwreck.
– Samuel JohnsonBuilding on this from yesterday. Here Samuel Johnson claims one of the qualities writers of this time were lacking was “real-world” experience. The need for getting out of “solitary diligence” and shoving their hands in the mud.
The task of our present writers is very different; it requires, together with that learning which is to be gained from books, that experience which can never be attained by solitary diligence, but must arise from general converse, and accurate observation of the living world. Their performances have, as Horace expresses it, plus oneris quantum veniae minus, 5 little indulgence, and therefore more difficulty. They are engaged in portraits of which every one knows the original, and can detect any deviation from exactness of resemblance. Other writings are safe, except from the malice of learning, but these are in danger from every common reader; as the slipper ill executed was censured by a shoemaker who happened to stop in his way at the Venus of Apelles. 6
Samuel JohnsonCracking Samuel Johnson is a fistfight. One needs assistance to punch through. Chat GPT4 was my tag team partner, leading me to the Rambler, No. 4.
A prompt below:
RAMBLER, No. 4 was a shorter essay than I expected. It’s a good entry point to Samuel Johnson. My initial interpretation is he’s criticizing the novel writing of his day. It needs a second read.
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We believe in the romance of technology, of industry. The eros of the train, the car, the electric light, the skyscraper. And the microchip, the neural network, the rocket, the split atom.
We believe in adventure. Undertaking the Hero’s Journey, rebelling against the status quo, mapping uncharted territory, conquering dragons, and bringing home the spoils for community.
To paraphrase a manifesto of a different time and place: “Beauty exists in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Technology must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.”
We believe that we are, have been, and will always be the masters of technology, not mastered by technology. Victim mentality is a curse in every domain of life, including in our relationship with technology – both unnecessary and self-defeating. We are not victims, we are conquerors.
– Marc AndreessenImportant.
*post post thoughts:
When this post dropped it had the feel of a surprise album release. With all of the podcasts, reviews, criticisms, and raves. Will more online writing have this feel upon publication?
Anytime I see a title with “Manifesto” included it sparks intrigue. Where have all the manifestos gone? The internet seems like the ideal medium for them. Will this one inspire an uptick manifesto publishing?
More optimism is needed. You can argue the merits of Marc Anderson’s piece, but the world could use more optimistic writing that inspires action.
Andreessen, Marc. The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. Marc Andreessen Substack. October 16, 2023.
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Maxi Gorynski makes the argument that the high literacy from earlier times encouraged ambition
John Donne was not known for his intolerable sexiness but for being such a hellcat meme-minter at the pulpit.
The above, may be the best “on-line” sentence I’ve read.
When Hugo wandered off into thick tangential considerations of niche subjects like Gothic architecture, the public didn’t scrunch its nose and go and read something simpler or more focused; instead, they took his lead and developed a passion for Gothic architecture themselves.
Interesting how the French didn’t want to simplify Hugo’s work, but instead further develop their understanding of Gothic architecture.
How was the passion for Gothic Architecture demonstrated at that time?
In summary, what a lack of ambient access to high literacy has to do with ambition: Provides people fewer tools for the processing and composition of complex thought, and fails to keep the mind adequately nourished with new impressions and syntheses that are conducive to high-ambition; and because works of high literacy are themselves conceived in ambition, the lack of opportunity to be regularly immersed in them deprives one of a sense of everyday communion with what is excellent.
I appreciate Maxi Gorynski‘s essay format. Each section presents a clear summary to solidify the point.
Read his essay On a Lack of Ambition full here.
Floodlights and Goalposts 