Category: quotes

I have defended the tech industry (which has employed me, well, at times) and my chosen home to many a non-believer but this article, combined with several others lately, I fear is turning me cynical.

I hate being cynical. Cynicism means I'm lazily naysaying because to actually think the argument through makes me uncomfortable. Cynicism, to my mind, is for chumps. 

That said, I can't ignore that bad feeling in my stomach, that the unparalleled success and cultural dominance of technology is coming at the expense of something. And I'm not talking about video stores, or the Yellow Pages or answering machines. I have no nostalgia for a less efficient way of delivering information/art/culture. Instead I wonder if the values it extols are blinding us to others, others that run counter to ideas like efficiency, speed and "disruption." 

Put in a really, really dumb way: "What will your average successful software engineer/entrepreneur do when his best friend's mother dies of cancer?" I promise you the answer has nothing to do with speed, efficiency or disruption. It has to do with patience, uninterrupted time and giving someone you love hours upon days of your full attention as the world rolls on by without your participation for the time being. There's already been an app designed for this. It's called "Being Human." 

I only learned this with age and maturity so maybe it comes to all of us eventually. Nor do I think the values we practice at work must mirror those we practice at home (Andrew Carnegie sure treated his kids different than he treated his competitors). But I also doubt we can be totally compartmentalized forever. Much of life is simply not elegant, efficient, frictionless or well-designed. A lot of it could be better. But those probably aren't the standards by which we should be judging our human relationships, our psychological and spiritual development, our place in the continuum of the human story. All of that stuff is messy on purpose. The messy part is called "being human." 

Same dumb example: When the time comes, as it will for him, and for everyone, will Mark Zuckerberg and all who look up to him, know how to grieve, how to be present, how to sit with a sick person for hours at a time? Will they know how to comfort a scared kid during a thunderstorm? How to hold someone they love as they weep? Will they know how to be real instead of being better than?

Full attention is what makes us human. In this brave new world, Must we give ourselves time to learn that? Or do we no longer feel like we have to? 

Had a great lunch with agent on Friday. Still promoting Practical Classics but may be working on something new right soon!

My POV 15 minutes before I went on KQED's Forum, the most listened to public affairs program in the region. 

Afterward: Forgot to take a photo. Was craving the second half of that scone I did not finish. 

I think I did ok. But you tell me. 

I was honored to be included in The Million's Year in Reading 2012. Every year, the online magainze The Millions asks authors to speak to what they've been writing that year. The neat part is you don't have to speak to a book that is brand new or on everyone's minds. Just whatever stood out in your year of munching through the stacks. 

I've spent the last year rereading novels assigned in high school while writing Practical Classics. So I did my little piece on Catcher in the Rye and its look at grieving. A little from it…

Let us ignore that I was that idiot in 10th grade who wore a red earflap hat and trenchcoat for a few weeks because Holden Caufield “understood me” and move to this: How many siblings does Mr. Caufield have? We all remember younger sister Phoebe and probably older brother DB, the one working as a screenwriter out west. But do you remember Holden’s younger brother Allie, who has died recently when the novel opens? In a pivotal scene — the one right before he meets Phoebe at the Natural History Museum — he is wandering Park Avenue, lonesome and heartbroken, and each block reciting “Please Allie, don’t let me die.”

• My whole entry.
• The entire Year in Reading list. With entries by writers like Susan Orlean, Chris Ware, And Jeffrey Eugenides.     

I spent this past weekend as a guest of the Idea Festival, a 10 year-old meeting of great ideas, world-class thinkers and performers in Louisville, KY. I spoke at the event in 2006, when it was much smaller and concepts like "social media" (my topic) were new. This fall, I, along with Cariwyl Hebert of Salon97 and writer Jeff Rider and co-founder of Longform, Max Linsky were invited to cover the festival on social media channels. Though guests of the festival, our coverage was, by mutual agreement, editorially independent. 

Here were my takeaways. 

• Little Bets. Venture Capitalist Peter Sims spoke of the chief ideas in his new book "Little Bets: How Breakthrough Idea Emerge from Small Discoveries," namely how in both business and creativity, success comes from many small risks you can afford to lose and not minimizing the possibility of error. Examples Sims cited include The Onion headline process (600 written for 12 selected), stand-up comedy (hundreds of hours of lousy material and bad sets in putting together, say a 90 minute HBO special), Beethoven (who made hundreds of notes, and false starts before completing most of his pieces) and Pixar (which was originally a hardware company with an idea of making computer-animated films and no idea how to get there.

  While nothing Mr. Sims said was revolutionary, the idea is one creative people need to constantly remember: Fear of failing is failure. Trying, no matter how badly, is a little bet towards a tangible future. And just as Pixar had no idea how to become Pixar, without the attempt, however silly and pointless it felt at the time, they never would have been.

• Cynthia Lowen, producer of the documentary Bully, silenced the entire room with the story of her documentary about bullying and the three clips she showed. No, the conference did not screen the movie and should have, especially since its next screenings and DVD/streaming release are nowhere to be found on the film's website. 

 More importantly though, Ms. Lowen's film and companion book back up their advocacy with fact: Bullying is a measurable, horrible drain on our economy, our culture and the very upward process of humanity. A complicated, interconnected world like ours here in the 21st century needs working together and collaboration not I'll-take-mine-and-screw-you-thank-you individualism. A culture intolerant to difference (and this is at all levels. Lowen and her team found that most schools with a bullying problem have a bullying culture at the administrative level) is a culture slowly committing suicide.

Advocacy minus fact is just screaming into the wind. The team behind Bully does better.  

• Food. A Louisvillian reported to us that his city has the most new restaurants per capita in the US. I haven't found the statistic he cited but at the conference's Taste of Innovation (held at the legendary Churchill Downs) 30 of Louisville chefs and restauranteurs were at full tilt. And I don't even drink bourbon or care for Kentucky Hot Browns. 

We were only in town for a few days but I had at least 3 meals (St. Charles Exchange, Proof on Main and The Mayan Cafe) that would rival anything I've eaten in in better known foodie towns like Portland or Austin. Who knew?  

• Grimanesa Amoros: A Peruvian artist who came to Louisville and the Idea Festival through the organization Creative Capital, Amoros creates site-specific light and glass installations, inspired my the movement of water and bubbles from Lake Titicaca in her home country. 

This one, from a Madrid gallery showing is my favorite. 

          

  Though Cariwyl and Jeff and I were talking about taking a trip around the world so see all of them in the flesh. Or glass.

• Shakespeare Behind Bars. An incredible organization that has, for two decades, been putting on plays in the Kentucky prison system. Actors have a 3% rate of recitivism after completing the program. The national average is 65%. 

We got to hear speakers from both the Kentucky prison system, administrators of the program and the inmate/actors themselves. And there was a documentary made about the program in 2005 available on Netflix streaming. 

• Do not miss Dr. Richard Kogan if he performs/lectures in a town near you. A Harvard psychiatrist/concert pianist, his presentations are a thrilling combination of music and insight into the creative mind.  

TL;DR version:

Go to the friggin Idea Festival next year Sept. 24-28. It's affordable (an all-access pass is $450 for 4 days), different, and still at a managable size where you don't spend most of your effort figuring out how to get a seat, have lunch and find your friends. And we'd like to come  back and would love to spend some time with you.  

Endnote: Videos from this year's Idea Festival will be available soon. I'll be sure to post my favorites. 

This book is almost finished. Speak to you when it is. 

Ragdale was fabulous. I could only stay for 8 days (instead of the regular 2 weeks) as I had commitments in Miami I couldn't change. But 8 days was more than enough to get a bushel and three pecks out of the experience and to want to go back, like real soon. 

The deal with an artist residency is this: 1) You apply to an organization's residency program (according to the Alliance for Artist Communities, there are over 300 such organizations in the US) 2) If you get accepted, the organization brings you to their campus (can be a university, a museum, or, in the case of Ragdale, a famous old house in the woods) and gives you room and board to do your work for a period of time. 3) At some, you are expected to present your work in progress, some not. The real promise is time, quiet and freedom from life's obligations. 

I knew that one of the few perks that comes with writing a book is to apply for these things. In September, I threw my hat in for 5 programs. Since Ragdale was in the midwest (my birthplace and about 2 hours less flying than California) and had been recommended by not one but two friends, it was my first choice. 

I'd never been an artist-in-residence before and didn't know when this opportunity would come along again. And since I only had a little over a week there, I wanted to take full advantage of the time and set myself the goal of 3 book chapters. I reached my goal. 

More importantly though, I felt like I belonged. I've never thought of myself as an artist, creative, yes, clever, sometimes, but not the kind who talks about "my work" or "my process." I still don't feel entirely genuine saying even that but being in a residency program means you are not pretending: They expect you to be the kind of person that creates as regularly as a gardener weeds. 

At Ragdale you're pretty much on your own for most of the day. You pass other residents in the hall or the library but everyone's either headed to work or taking a quick break from it. I spent the better part of my first few days asking myself "Did I take out the trash?" "Do I need to do the laundry?" and remembering I didn't have those concerns at the moment. I didn't have any concerns except writing, which is terrifying, but like a dunk in a cold well. It clarifies your day's purpose pretty damn quick. 

I would write a few hours in the morning, break for lunch then try to finish up that chapter in the afternoon. If I had to read or research, did that. Most nights, I'd pull a few hours after dinner, then read or watch a movie on my laptop before bed. A few times I took the train into Chicago to visit friends. But the routine was write, break, read, write, break, eat, write, sleep. 

On the third night, I gave a quick reading of my book and got some great feedback. The most important: Keep at it. 

Dinner at Ragdale is communal. You eat around a large old wooden table and begin bites ask your fellow residents how their day went, how they feel about their work. As formal gives way to friendly, you talk about families and hometowns, hobbies and trade secrets. There were only 8 of us, instead of Ragdale's normal 12 residents per session. I think we became friends a little easier and faster because of it. 

I'm going to do a separate post about my fellow residents highlighting their work and why I'll be cheering them on. They did the same and more for me. 

Thank you to them and thank you to Ragdale. It's a special place over there in Lake Forest. I hope to come back someday soon.