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Colleague
Anne Akiko Meyers, sweat, small engines, tines, shovels, stories and the smell of rotting wood and cut grass.
Strings and unintended results
I sit on our local school board. The most eye-opening part of the experience has been how little control we have over so many aspects of the district.
We adopt policies which are over-worded or miss an important point because they are required or mandated by some government agency. If we fail to adopt a measure, some source of government funding is cut off.
During my first meeting we were discussing "bullying" and bullying policies. The policies are written to protect students from other students and staff - an important and admirable goal. But another equally important problem is how chronic troublemaker students take advantage of our public schools. I asked about the staff; what can we do to protect the staff from "anger management" children - kids who can't behave are often "diagnosed" this way. The diagnosis adds an air of science to misbehavior. Can't we kick these kids out if they won't follow the rules and distract the other children by screaming and cussing at teachers or throwing things? The short answer is we can't. We aren't permitted to.
We recently walked through some of the new and beautiful buildings in our district. "Why so many television monitors" I asked. They are required as part of the guidelines for funding the buildings. The projectors mounted to the ceiling are a bit too close to the whiteboards on which they will project images - part of the specifications to get funding. We walk on.
The other night we raised school lunch fees for next year. We didn't need to; our school has competitive fees, a good menu and runs in the black thanks to very good management. We were required to raise fees because otherwise we couldn't qualify for the free and reduced lunch reimbursements from the government. So we raised fees to get assistance for children who can't afford lunches.
Well intentioned legislators and rulemakers pile responsibilities on our schools. We need to feed kids breakfast. We need after school care for students. We need to teach this or that subject this or that particular way. Or else. The result, increasingly, is a public wondering why schools can't teach kids and schools working to meet requirements and not sever attached strings while still teaching children.
Slush piles
"Jean Van Leeuwen, herself at Dial at the time, says she found the manuscript 'in the 'slush pile' of unsolicited manuscripts. I was impressed by its wonderful combination of humor, obscure intellectual references, the supernatural, and cozy, down-to-earth milk and cookies. I remember a lot of correspondence with John, but only one or two actual face-to-face meetings. My chief memory of these meetings was that he brought me delicious chocolate chip cookies, made by his wife, Priscilla. I don't recall ever talking to him about how he came to write The House with a Clock in its Walls, or how much of his writing was autobiographical."
Read on. Buy the book here for some summer reading.
"Make good pitches"
Greg Maddux on pitching (and life). A great interview on the importance of basics (starts 50 seconds in):
Music for the weekend - James Brown
James Brown sings "Cold Sweat". He anticipated some of my moves:
6:19 not enough? Part two here. Volume Up.
6:19 not enough? Part two here. Volume Up.
Back later
Thanks to all of you for reading. I'm taking some time off. Back later.
Class warfare as "protection"
Joel Kotkin looks at California's regulatory and tax environment. The state is protecting its citizens to death.
An excerpt:
"One reason for California’s widening class divide is that, for a decade or longer, the state’s progressives have fostered a tax environment that slows job creation, particularly for the middle and working classes. In 1994, California placed 35th in the Tax Foundation’s ranking of states with the lightest tax burdens on business; today, it has plummeted to 48th. Only New York and New Jersey have more onerous business-tax burdens. Local taxes and fees have made five California cities—San Francisco, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and Culver City—among the nation’s 20 most expensive business environments, according to the Kosmont–Rose Institute Cost of Doing Business Survey.
An excerpt:
"One reason for California’s widening class divide is that, for a decade or longer, the state’s progressives have fostered a tax environment that slows job creation, particularly for the middle and working classes. In 1994, California placed 35th in the Tax Foundation’s ranking of states with the lightest tax burdens on business; today, it has plummeted to 48th. Only New York and New Jersey have more onerous business-tax burdens. Local taxes and fees have made five California cities—San Francisco, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and Culver City—among the nation’s 20 most expensive business environments, according to the Kosmont–Rose Institute Cost of Doing Business Survey.
Still more troubling to California employers is the state’s regulatory environment. California labor laws, a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce study revealed, are among the most complex in the nation. The state has strict rules against noncompetition agreements, as well as an overtime regime that reduces flexibility: unlike other states, where overtime kicks in after 40 hours in a given week, California requires businesses to pay overtime to employees who have clocked more than eight hours a day (see “Cali to Business: Get Out!,” Autumn 2011). Rules for record-keeping and rest breaks are likewise more stringent than in other states. The labor code contains tough provisions on everything from discrimination to employee screening, the Chamber of Commerce study notes, and has created 'a cottage industry of class actions' in the state. California’s legal climate is the fifth-worst in the nation, according to the Institute for Legal Reform; firms face far higher risks of nuisance and other lawsuits from employees than in most other places. In addition to these measures, California has imposed some of the most draconian environmental laws in the country, as we will see in a moment."
Read on at City Journal.
Don Giovanni
Spengler has seen Mozart's masterpiece as it may have been first performed:
"Mozart's singers, moreover, were young - his first Don Giovanni was the 21-year-old Luigi Bassi, as young as Suchan Kim or Ricardo Rivera, who sang on alternate nights in the Mannes version. Young people take musical as well as dramatic risks, and Mozart requires risk. Don Giovanni, moreover, is an ensemble opera first and foremost: it is the interaction of the characters and their responses to each other that keeps the electricity flowing.
It demands chamber-music skills and subordination to the ensemble of a kind that the professional music world does not foster. Singing superstars are not paid to enhance the contributions of their colleagues, but rather to upstage them.
That, paradoxically, explains why Colaneri's kindergarten did an incomparably better job than the Metropolitan Opera under the hapless Fabio Luisi earlier this year. Technical capacity no longer is a constraint among the top cut of music conservatories; Mannes' opera program has become such a sure springboard for professional careers that the small school rejects a dozen opera applicants for each one it accepts."
Watch the overture performed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra :
"Mozart's singers, moreover, were young - his first Don Giovanni was the 21-year-old Luigi Bassi, as young as Suchan Kim or Ricardo Rivera, who sang on alternate nights in the Mannes version. Young people take musical as well as dramatic risks, and Mozart requires risk. Don Giovanni, moreover, is an ensemble opera first and foremost: it is the interaction of the characters and their responses to each other that keeps the electricity flowing.
It demands chamber-music skills and subordination to the ensemble of a kind that the professional music world does not foster. Singing superstars are not paid to enhance the contributions of their colleagues, but rather to upstage them.
That, paradoxically, explains why Colaneri's kindergarten did an incomparably better job than the Metropolitan Opera under the hapless Fabio Luisi earlier this year. Technical capacity no longer is a constraint among the top cut of music conservatories; Mannes' opera program has become such a sure springboard for professional careers that the small school rejects a dozen opera applicants for each one it accepts."
Watch the overture performed by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra :
View from Your desk. . .
Andrew Guanciale snaps a view from his father's old office.
For solitude
The Hammock Papers looks at solitude:
Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re not joiners by nature.
More at Anderson Layman's Blog.
Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted, according to studies by the psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Gregory Feist. They’re extroverted enough to exchange and advance ideas, but see themselves as independent and individualistic. They’re not joiners by nature.
More at Anderson Layman's Blog.
"an appreciation for such things"
"I love food. I love where my food comes from. I wish more people had an appreciation for such things. I believe we’d have happier people walking around. To eat food like this is a daily adventure, and I feel blessed. When I see cars lined up at fast food outlets I’m saddened for the future of humanity."
Whole Larder Love on good food.
In praise of life
Here is the thing about life: From the moment you are ejected out of your mother's womb, it is coming for you. Life is unrelenting. It is experiential. Smells, sounds, sights and senses constantly bombarding you. A firehose dousing you every single moment of every single day.
The ultimate carnival is life. We get 70 or 80 years on average - more than most organisms.
Bearings come first. Filters second. Next we get our feet under us and stand up to the storm. I believe it would be too traumatic for us to remember this part of the battle so our brain simply blocks it out. We remember periods of rest first; on our back, someone picking us up or tucking us in after a hard day's battle.
Next we begin to decipher communication directed at us. Those who pay attention to us most are excited when we utter a sound toward them. The battle must be so intense. So many sources of information. So much coming right at us.
At some point we get to decide: Are we going to manage life or are we going to be managed by it. Is this the most basic decision we make? How is it influenced by our mother and father? If I think to the most important decision I have ever made it has been this one: Swim versus tread water. One decision demands thought and action, another buoyancy.
I believe the decision is given over and over. Am I going to stand against this big old powerful force or am I going to to ride downstream with it? One decision may be no better than the other but life demands at least a decision of us or we go down. And once we make a decision, this cascading series of other decisions are offered. That's life - ride or party.
My father-in-law baptized each of our children with this greeting: Welcome to the party. He knew about the decisions and their importance. He knew about the decisions and wanted to do everything he could to encourage right ones.
I wish I had a conclusion for you but I don't. That is for you to figure out but I do know the difference between the party and the ride.
The ultimate carnival is life. We get 70 or 80 years on average - more than most organisms.
Bearings come first. Filters second. Next we get our feet under us and stand up to the storm. I believe it would be too traumatic for us to remember this part of the battle so our brain simply blocks it out. We remember periods of rest first; on our back, someone picking us up or tucking us in after a hard day's battle.
Next we begin to decipher communication directed at us. Those who pay attention to us most are excited when we utter a sound toward them. The battle must be so intense. So many sources of information. So much coming right at us.
At some point we get to decide: Are we going to manage life or are we going to be managed by it. Is this the most basic decision we make? How is it influenced by our mother and father? If I think to the most important decision I have ever made it has been this one: Swim versus tread water. One decision demands thought and action, another buoyancy.
I believe the decision is given over and over. Am I going to stand against this big old powerful force or am I going to to ride downstream with it? One decision may be no better than the other but life demands at least a decision of us or we go down. And once we make a decision, this cascading series of other decisions are offered. That's life - ride or party.
My father-in-law baptized each of our children with this greeting: Welcome to the party. He knew about the decisions and their importance. He knew about the decisions and wanted to do everything he could to encourage right ones.
I wish I had a conclusion for you but I don't. That is for you to figure out but I do know the difference between the party and the ride.
Music for a Saturday night - Alison Krauss and Tony Rice
Volume up. Volume wayyyyyyy up. Alison Krauss and Tony Rice performing "Sawing on the Strings":
When the neighbors had a shindig
And they all had viddles to eat
We'd always have to wait on Will
To make the frolic complete
When he comes down from the mountain
All the gals began to sway
Sometimes he'd pick that ol' 5 string
Until the break of day
When the neighbors had a shindig
And they all had viddles to eat
We'd always have to wait on Will
To make the frolic complete
When he comes down from the mountain
All the gals began to sway
Sometimes he'd pick that ol' 5 string
Until the break of day
You need the "Saphir shine"
"When you go to have your shoes shined in London or New York these days,
the prices are very low (if you can even find the service in London -
the only shiner I know of is in the Royal Arcade) and the shines leave
your shoes looking about like they did before they were polished. On
the other hand, shoe lovers in Tokyo can patronize high quality shiners
that remove your shoes and serve you a drink while they do work that is
to the normal Manhattan shoe shine what Starbucks is to Dunkin' Donuts."
Read on at A Suitable Wardrobe.
Read on at A Suitable Wardrobe.
Music for the weekend - Vaughan Williams
Written in 1903 after Ralph Vaughn Williams had studied with Ravel, the Piano Quintet in C Minor was put aside by Williams and initially embargoed for performance by Ursula Vaughan Williams (initially being until the 1990s). We now thankfully are able to listen to perhaps one of Vaughan Williams best pieces of Chamber music. It only took one hundred years (and 824 views on YouTube is a crime):
Part two.
Part three.
Part two.
Part three.
