Thoughts About Stuff: “Quidquid praecipies, esto brevis." (Whatever advice you give, be brief.) ― Horace, Arte poética
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Updike
Browsing the library shelves the other day I stopped at the John Updike novels. By my count he wrote 27 novels. I've never read any of them.
(I think that when writers reach a certain number of novels they begin to repeat themselves. Two obvious examples of why this is a foolish thought are Mark Twain and Jack London.)
So I thought maybe it was time to take a look at Updike. Two of his Rabbit novels won Pulitzers. I pulled Rabbit at Rest from the shelf and read the inside front flap. It didn't instill confidence in me. It was like reading Cliff Notes.
(When I read the inside cover of The Maltese Falcon it doesn't talk about the moral void Sam Spade lives in. It talks about a group of ne're-do-wells and a priceless statue from the Knights of Rhodes. I like an exciting story. I think I can find the human condition within by myself.)
I took a look inside. There were things like, “He looked over and watched her tuck back a stubborn fluttering wisp of half-gray hair from her sun-toughened little brown nut of a face.” I can't handle that many adjectives. It's like they're being shot out of a machine gun.
I put Rabbit back to rest. I'll try him again someday. Things change.
George W. Parker
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Penn State - A Choice of Words
Since the business at Penn State is back in the news I thought I would re-post this from a previous blog:
I thought it would be appropriate to pile on the Penn State mess for my first blog post. But I wasn't sure that "mess" really conveys all that is involved with this.
So I looked up mess ... "an unpleasant or difficult situation." That seems to be an understatement for the affair.
Affair... I won't even list a definition for that. That just so doesn't fit all the trouble up there.
Trouble... "to disturb the mental calm and contentment of; worry; distress; agitate"... Well that sits a little better considering all the worry and distress and everyone's agitation over the problem.
Problem... "any question or matter involving doubt, uncertainty, or difficulty"... There is certainly a lot of doubt with Penn State's imbroglio.
Imbroglio... "an intricate and perplexing state of affairs; a complicated or difficult situation" ... Again with the "difficult" and "situation" words.
Situation... "the state of affairs; combination of circumstances"... Even when you add "difficult" that doesn't really seem to cover this business.
Business... I went to the twelfth definition of "business" to get this... "of, noting, or pertaining to business, its organization, or its procedures".
I think "business" is the correct label here. Penn State had a systemic failure within its organization to identify, correct and prevent any such "situation" as this. Obviously its procedures were geared to protecting itself, its employees and its reputation from anything and everything. Even the firings this past week were more about protecting the brand than cleaning up this business.
Thanks to Dictionary.com for the definitions.
George
Monday, July 2, 2012
Content Providers - You
I'm willing to bet you are member of a no cost content
distribution network. I participate in several. They have names like
Facebook, Goggle+, YouTube, Pinterest and Twitter. They make (or try
to make) their money selling ad views to their content providers, aka,
you. We like their services (generally) and we like their pricing (free.)
They like our free content and our page views.
I've been
using Twitter to initiate updates across my accounts because they seemed to be capable
of playing well with others. Up until Friday that is when they and Linked In
broke up.
The big boys don't
want to play well together. They keep trying to herd us into exclusivity
contracts with them so they can "manage" (control) our page views. Personally I
don't like being herded. It's becoming like the early home computer wars, everyone wants you locked in with them
At some point
someone is going to enter the field and offer a central content
distribution system that integrates with everything and everyone. You
can think of them as an ubiquitous, all pervasive content outlet,
kind of a Visa or MasterCard for content. The other branded credit cards
(content networks) will still be out there but we'll all rely on our Visa
and MasterCard.
This Twitter –
Linked In spat is not anything I won't get over. It's not my first
breakup and probably not my last, but it is annoying. Now I have to
re-evaluate my personal content distribution work flow.
Don't forget you and your content are the value of these networks.
George W. Parker
George W. Parker
Thursday, June 21, 2012
US Department of Language
Helmut
was a German electronics engineer I worked with years ago. He often stated that the U.S. needed to create a government agency to
control American English. He was disturbed that existing words would change meanings and that anyone could create a new word. It was no
use explaining to Helmut those are the exact reasons that American
English is a vibrant, growing language. (Helmut's nickname was Helmet.)
But to Helmut's point I do want to say I wish someone would keep count (If the government is not already doing it.) of how many times a word is overused and set up some kind of quota system to control it. Right now everyone in every sports - players, coaches, managers, owners, announcers, and fans - is using some form of the word "grind."
"We have to keep grinding."
"I just kept grinding."
"It was a real grind out there today."
"I had to grind my way around the course today."
Whatever happened to "a tough day" or "a rough outing?" I've personally always liked "kept our focus" and "stayed within ourselves."
I have seen the movie Bull Durham. "Grind" for all its color is not in the official sports lexicon. Oh, that's right. This is America.
Well, maybe at least the networks can bleep the G word. It is really starting to grind on my nerves
George W. Parker
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
The truth, you don't say (.)(?)
Everyone knows the truth is a slippery
commodity. It is all in the packaging, in the spin. I was watching
the commercials during one of the networks' evening news broadcasts
the other day and this is who the advertisers were and what they were
selling:
- A national oil producers' association – shale oil production
- A national coal producers' association – “clean” coal
- A Big Pharma member – “big” pills
- A retirement association – their organization
- An insurance company – You need them more than ever now
- An investment firm – Your retirement money is safe with them
They all touted their information as
“the truth.”
- The national oil producers' association – No mention of flaming water faucets
- The national coal producers' association – “Clean” coal seems to be an oxymoron to me
- The Big Pharma member – They warned about it working to well
- The retirement association – No mention of their insurance connections
- The insurance company – They are better than the less expensive e-surance brands. (Now that they have their own e-surance brand.)
- The investment firm – They didn't need to mention Lehman Brothers or the global financial crisis.
As a writer it is often what you leave
out that matters. Here is an example:
- The sun was shining.
- The sun was shining, the birds were singing.
- The sun was shining, the ground was baked and cracked.
From connotations of hope, of spring,
of drought it's all right there. The truth be told it was all three
things: The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the ground
was baked and cracked.
Save that receipt when you open the
package, maybe you can return it if its not what you thought.
George W. Parker
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Too much of a good thing.
I just finished re-reading my favorite Raymond Chandler book The Long Goodbye. It has everything.
A great hardboiled story: Marlowe's friend is accused of murder and the cops, the hoods and the powerful all warn Marlowe off the case. Inexorably the case is pushed onto him until he solves everything to no one's liking, including his.
It defines the essence of hardboiled detectives: “...this was the part I never listened to. Because if I ever had I would have stayed in the town where I grew up and worked in the hardware store...”
It discusses writing as a business: “The public likes long books. ...if there are lots of pages there must be lots of gold.” There are shots at advertising which he compares to chess: “...as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency.”
It has the best descriptions of drinking this side of Malcolm Lowry: Such as when you have stopped drinking “... It's a different world. You have to get used to a paler set of colors, a quieter lot of sounds. ...”
But if I had to give The Long Goodbye a book review rating it would be 2 stars. Chandler doesn't do the 1950's well. Censorship had loosened up and he uncomfortably tried to go with the new flow in pulp. Marlowe calls a man “flea dirt” and describes himself in one scene as being “erotic as a stallion.” I doubt that those lines read well in 1954, much less now.
As much as I enjoy the literary side trips in The Long Goodbye, it has too many. I wish Raymond Chandler had stayed focused on the hardboiled angle.
George W. Parker
A great hardboiled story: Marlowe's friend is accused of murder and the cops, the hoods and the powerful all warn Marlowe off the case. Inexorably the case is pushed onto him until he solves everything to no one's liking, including his.
It defines the essence of hardboiled detectives: “...this was the part I never listened to. Because if I ever had I would have stayed in the town where I grew up and worked in the hardware store...”
It discusses writing as a business: “The public likes long books. ...if there are lots of pages there must be lots of gold.” There are shots at advertising which he compares to chess: “...as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency.”
It has the best descriptions of drinking this side of Malcolm Lowry: Such as when you have stopped drinking “... It's a different world. You have to get used to a paler set of colors, a quieter lot of sounds. ...”
But if I had to give The Long Goodbye a book review rating it would be 2 stars. Chandler doesn't do the 1950's well. Censorship had loosened up and he uncomfortably tried to go with the new flow in pulp. Marlowe calls a man “flea dirt” and describes himself in one scene as being “erotic as a stallion.” I doubt that those lines read well in 1954, much less now.
As much as I enjoy the literary side trips in The Long Goodbye, it has too many. I wish Raymond Chandler had stayed focused on the hardboiled angle.
George W. Parker
Sunday, June 3, 2012
How to make a point.
Here is a link to an interesting
article by Lee Drutman entitled Is Congress getting dumber, or
just more plainspoken?
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/05/21/grade-level-congress/
The premise is of the article is
simple: Examine speeches using the using the
Flesch-Kincaid test and see what happens. I want to point out
that Flesh-Kincaid equates higher grade levels with longer words and
longer sentences.
According to the results at the above
link Congress is speaking at a 10.6 grade level down from an 11.5
level in 2005.
MS Word includes a Flesh-Kincaid
analysts in its tools. I took a few book/author samples and tested
them. I grant this is a small sample but I think it has some “tough
reading” in it from a diverse group of English language writers.
Martin Eden – Jack London – 3.8
As I lay Dying – William Faulkner –
4.8
Treasure Island – Robert Lewis
Stevenson – 2.0
Paradise Lost – John Milton – 3.4
Ulysses – James Joyce – 2.7
Bleak House – Charles Dickens – 4.5
The Winter of Our Discontent – John
Steinbeck – 2.7
Based on my sampling it looks like it might be more
important to say something meaningful that everyone can understand
than worry about vocabulary and sentence length.
(I wanted to slip obfuscate into my
comment up there somewhere but I use Open Office now so I can't check to see if
it would have helped my Flesh-Kincaid rating.)
George W. Parker
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