“Truth and sincerity have a certain distinguishing native luster about them which cannot be perfectly counterfeited; they are like fire and flame, that cannot be painted.”
Ben Franklin
Category: History
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Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.
– Treebeard
Where Merry and Pippen encounter Treebeard.
Fascinating idea from Tolkien.
What if all languages took such a long time to say anything, that we had to only say things worth saying. 🙂
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Cohn-Bendit on TV. Intelligent, cunning, devious, has the memory of everything he has ever read; impertinent; good, rapid speaker; wraps up his opponents ( a trio of middle-aged newsmen). He has the ruthlessness of someone unable to put himself in another’s place.
– Mavis Gallant
How does Mavis get away with writing sentences like this? Describing so much with so few words. Incomplete sentences my elementary school teachers would say.
Read a few pages of the Paris Notebook and you’ll realize where the inspiration for the French Dispatch came from. Not only the Lucinda Krementz part. The entire film!
Even the typeface at the top of the pages and chapter beginnings will look familiar.
Gallant, Mavis. Paris Notebooks: Essays & Reviews. United States, David R. Godine Publisher, 2023. p. 19
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The truth is Franklin failed often. He never folded, though. When confronted with a setback, he didn’t abandon the idea. He retooled it and tried again. Franklin never let failure discourage him from taking new risks, including his biggest gamble of all: jumping from British Loyalist to American rebel, and at age sixty-nine. For Franklin, failure was a down payment on success.
That from a fascinating new book Ben & Me. Ben Franklin, late bloomer. Kept an open mind at age sixty-nine.
Weiner, Eric. Ben & Me: In Search of a Founder’s Formula for a Long and Useful Life. United States, Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 2024. p.104
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People are always speculating – why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from birth, must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient.
– Malcolm X
X, Malcolm. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. United States, Random House Publishing Group, 2015.
and
Oliver, Henry. Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life. United Kingdom, John Murray Press, 2024. pg V
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Poetry, on the other hand, was a family pastime–almost an obligation in the Verne household. Brothers and sisters, parents and children, uncles aunts, and cousins exchanged verse as if they were handshakes or hugs. Jules could have taken rhyming as one more family duty; instead, he rose to the occasion. Later, he would tell a journalist that he began to write at the age of twelve–began to write poetry, that is–“and dreadful poetry,” in his words.
I’m surprised Silicon Valley types and other tech optimists don’t mention Jules Verne more often. I mean he was the first science fiction writer. He was maybe the first techno-optimist.
The Tablet Palmer Luckey profile mentioned Luckey was “Jules-Verne” obsessed. But he’s the only one. Is something missing here?
Jules Verne is underrated.
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Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians.
This sentence reads like a modern “Once upon a time”. Immediately after reading it I felt like yeah, I want to be part of this story.
Clarke, Susanna. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. United Kingdom, Bloomsbury, 2005. pg3
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“Draw, Antonio, draw, Antonio, draw and do not waste time.”
– Michelangelo
Or write. Or code. Or pitch. Or read. Or blog.
Do not waste time.
Oliver, Henry. Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life. United Kingdom, John Murray Press, 2024. pg 278 of the Kindle Edition
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Doodling here is writing’s other self, its shadow form. As much as they tell us about writing, doodles tell us about reading. They get at the heart of the critical act by seeming to solicit interpretation, then skittering away when we get down to the business of studying them. They might, after all, register no more than the inky imprints of the pleasures of mark-making or the necessity of testing the pen. Take a doodle too seriously, and you risk finding only your own desire for meaning bounced back at you.
Draw.
Polly Dickson, “Doodle Nation: Notes on Distracted Drawing,” The Paris Review (blog), July 17, 2024, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2024/07/17/doodle-nation-notes-on-distracted-drawing/.
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“Reason holds the helm, but passions are the gales.”
– John Adams
John Adams was enlightened to the human heart.
McCullough, David. John Adams. United Kingdom, Simon & Schuster, 2001. pg 421
Floodlights and Goalposts 