An online commonplace book
His name was Nikola Tesla.
A gifted inventor, a creature of habit.
A lover of animals, a friend to humankind.
A child of the storm, a child of the light.
A human flash of lightning, far ahead of his time.
- Azadeh Westergaard
Picture books are underrated. Children’s books are underrated.
Westergaard, Azadeh. A Life Electric: The Story of Nikola Tesla. United Kingdom, Penguin Young Readers Group, 2021.
‘I have lived among the Gods.’
Harkness, Sarah. Literature for the People: How The Pioneering Macmillan Brothers Built a Publishing Powerhouse. United Kingdom, Pan Macmillan, 2024.
‘Few men of our time have made a better use of a fortune of which they were the architects, or have been less spoilt by prosperity.’
That from the introduction of Sarah Harkness’ tome on the Macmillan brothers. Two pages in and I’m hyped. That’s what an introduction should do, right? It should act as the book’s hypeman!
Book introductions are underrated.
Harkness, Sarah. Literature for the People: How The Pioneering Macmillan Brothers Built a Publishing Powerhouse. United Kingdom, Pan Macmillan, 2024.
Inspired by the vanishing subgenre of agricultural memo books, ornate pocket ledgers, and the simple, unassuming beauty of a well-crafted grocery list, the Draplin Design Co., Portland, Ore. – in conjunction with Cloudal Partners, Chicago, Ill. – brings you “FIELD NOTES‘ in hopes of offering “An honest memo book worth fillin’ up with GOOD INFORMATION.”
Wow. That is a long sentence.
This from the inside back cover of any Field Notes memo book.
Fun marketing that makes you feel like a ranch hand, lone-ranger, or early 19th century boxing correspondent.
“Good grief the bodies are piling up.”
“Good grief the bodies are piling up..” Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron. Directed by Kaku Arakawa, NHK, 2024.
(*translated from Japanese)
Best movie, documentary or otherwise I’ve watched this year. It lingers in the mind after each viewing.
There’s a Dante reference.
Miyazaki works at the same type of desk as the rest of his team.
COVID-19 is brisked over – Miyazaki kept working.
The field they keep next to the studio is for the neighborhood kids. It has an abandoned soccer goal on one end. At one point the grass finally grows in and Miyazaki overhears a group of kids playing sandlot baseball.
Realizing a dream doesn’t make the suffering go away. Miyazaki suffers over thousands of binned sketches.
The longer you live the more you experience the death of friends and colleagues.
This is inescapable.
It’s no coincidence that the world’s best writers tend to keep diaries. If you faithfully record your life in a journal, you’re writing everyday — and if you write every day, you become a better writer. David Sedaris has kept a diary for forty years. This means that if you’ve kept a diary for a year of your life or less, Sedaris is at least forty times better at writing than you are.
Prefaces and dust jacket copy are underrated.
Sedaris, David. Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002). United States, Little, Brown, 2017.
“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
That one had to keep a “good heart,” come what may, was Abigail’s lifelong creed. “A merry heart doeth good like medicine,” she loved to say, quoting Proverbs. “I hate to complain,” she now wrote. “No one is without difficulties, whether in high or low life, and every person knows best where their own shoe pinches.
With all of the Richmond Hill house sick, Abigail Adam’s “good heart” endured.
The most formidable first lady of all time?
McCullough, David. John Adams. United Kingdom, Simon & Schuster, 2001. pg 423
At loose ends once again in Europe, and with no word from Congress, Adams was nonetheless determined to make himself useful. If nothing else, he could write—Adams would always write. Another man might have relaxed and bided his time, just as another man might have waited at El Ferrol for his ship to be repaired, rather than striking out over the mountains of Spain.
Always choose to make yourself useful, regardless of circumstance.
You too, can always write.
McCullough, David. John Adams. United Kingdom, Simon & Schuster, 2001. pg 234
What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests his heart in everything.
McCullough, David. John Adams. United Kingdom, Simon & Schuster, 2001. pg 287
